Unofficial Mianite Season 3
by DragonSaphiraReads
Summary: In a world completely unlike anything they had ever known, our heroes will face threats both new and old, and come to terms with parts of themselves they didn't know existed. Together they survive, divided they fall, and the forces lurking in this new world are bent on keeping them apart. A fan written project of what Mianite Season Three would have looked like.
1. A Whole New World

The fall through the void warped their sense of time. The heroes knew they'd been falling for a while, but there was nothing that actually showed the passage of time. They didn't get hungry or tired, which was a blessing as their items had disappeared the moment they jumped into the opened void in Ruxomar.

They lost Andor to the darkness after he'd tried to glide off and find something in the pitch darkness of the void, and both Mot and Dianite had disappeared as soon as they'd started falling.

They were stuck. And there was a weightless feeling in the pit of their stomachs, which would seem to indicate that they were falling. But there was no air whistling past their ears - or maybe there was, and they'd long grown used to it. It was silent, but an agreed upon silence - they could try to talk if they wanted, but it felt wrong to break such a complete quiet. Like there was something the void itself had to say, and only by quieting themselves could they even begin to try and hear and understand.

The heroes fell in a circle, holding hands so they could be assured of each other's presences'. Jordan held tight to Tom and Martha, Wag to Martha and Tucker, and Sonja to Tucker and Tom. They weren't able to talk to each other, as the darkness of the void pressed into them, invading their lungs and silencing their vocal cords.

Then, Tom squeezed his hand and pointed down, with their fingers intertwined, and coughed out a single word.

"Light."

Jordan immediately looked down, and squinted against the tiny pinprick of blinding light beneath them. It was smaller than a star, but brighter than the sun. As they watched, the pinprick grew to the size of his thumb, then his fist, then the diameter of his arm

Was this it? Would they finally leave this darkness?

There was a bright flash, and they were falling through a blue sky.

A menagerie of color assaulted their eyes as they each flailed their limbs and tried to orient themselves. The group broke apart as a sudden blast of air ripped their hands apart. Someone was screaming, and based on prior experience Jordan guessed it was Tucker or Tom.

Martha and Wag shot past the rest of them, their limbs folded and hands connected, aiming for the ground below. Jordan squinted and managed to make out a few blocks of blue, possibly a water pool they had spotted. It was amazing they had, considering it was only a couple blocks wide. He didn't spend much time surveying the land for another one; they were coming up on the ground fast and there was no time to waste if they intended to survive.

He spread his arms and legs wide to get to Tom, still kicking and screaming his head off. After his own shouts were whipped away by the wind, he resorted to grabbing Tom's hand and aiming them both towards the water. Tucker and Sonja saw this, and clumsily flapped towards each other, grabbing at each other's arms and linking themselves together.

The ground came up to meet them fast, and Tom and Jordan just barely managed to glide over enough to land safely. The resulting splash was explosive, and it took all the air out of Jordan's lungs. He struggled desperately to pull himself up above the surface, but Tucker and Sonja's landing sent him spinning around again. The man kicked as hard as he could, but as soon as he was about to break the surface, a foot came out of nowhere and hit him straight in the chest. He cried out under the water, sinking as he failed to rid his lungs of the water he was inhaling. Jordan watched as his friends got out of the pool, and seemed to not notice him still underneath in the explosion of bubbles.

His vision started to go hazy. He was still sinking. Was this pool really that deep? He hadn't thought so. He laughed as his nose burned with water. He lives that whole drop through the abyss, and then he drowns in a puddle. Ha!

He felt cold. His arms and legs had stopped working, so he floated serenely under the filtering white light. Half lidded eyes and a cold blue smile looked back at the sun. Had he been scared before? It was so beautiful down here, why would he need to be scared?

Bubbles suddenly disrupted the calm waves of the surface, and his last vision before it all went black was of an angel descending from the light above him,

"Ughhhhhhhh!" Tom groaned as he flopped halfway out of the shallow pool, breathing hard as he kicked furiously to get his legs out of the water. "That hurrrrt!"

"It's gonna hurt more if you don't stop kicking water in my face!" Tucker shouted at him, coughing and spluttering as he hauled his deadened body onto dry land. He held an arm out for Sonja, but she managed without it, kicking hard against the water to haul her body out.

"Is everyone alright!?" Martha asked, her voice scratchy from swallowing water. She clung to Wag even now, their hands intertwined as he rung out his robes and she her hair, sending a cascade of water back into the pool.

"I'm good. Man, that was awesome!" Tom grinned widely, his eyes glinting with excitement at the adrenaline rush they'd just experienced. Tucker punched him in the arm. "Ow! Shit man, my muscles still hurt!"

"That's for splashing me," he shot back, taking off his fingerless gloves and wringing them out. Sonja pulled her hoodie over her head and did the same, then stopped cold and looked around.

"Guys...?" They all looked at her, panic building in her eyes as she spun around and looked at all of them with fear stricken eyes.

"Where's Jordan?"

Martha immediately started looking around to see if he's somehow gotten out and started walking without them. Tucker, Sonja,and Tom all ran to the water's edge, where Sonja saw a dark shadow deep in the water. "The-"

Before she even finished the word, Tom dove in headfirst and frantically started swimming downwards.

His clumsy dive sent up a plume of water and bubbles, but he pulled against the water with hard, fast strokes. Jordan was sinking further, his eyes closed. His glasses had fallen off in the crash and sunk to the dark bottom.

If there even was a bottom.

'Just a little further!' Tom told himself, even when his lungs burned for air and his eyes stung. Jordan was only ten feet away... five feet... three feet...

Tom collided heavily with Jordan's still form, wrapping one arm around his waist and the other across his chest. He wasn't anywhere near the bottom of the pool to push off of, but he kicked over to the side of the pool and pushed off that with a powerful kick.

He did it again when he slammed into the opposite wall, and once more to break the surface. Tom coughed hard, wheezing and gulping as much air as he could get. Tucker, Sonja and Wag all reached out for them, with the two men grabbing the unconscious Jordan and Sonja helping Tom out.

He took only one deep breath to recover, then was on his knees besides his friend. The zombie skinned man put his ear to Jordan's chest, and after hearing nothing, he started pushing firmly against his chest.

"Do you know CPR, Tom?" Sonja asked, watching as he tried to save him.

"No, but I have to try!" he reasoned harshly with her, before tilting Jordan's lolling head back, pinching his nose, and tightly sealing his lips against cold blue ones. He absentmindedly thinks that the sight would be extremely awkward if he weren't attempting to save his friend's life.

Two breaths, 30 chest compressions. Those were the numbers he remembered from the class he took a long time ago, so that's what he was going with. As he pushed down harder, Tom felt his friend's ribs give under his hands, and he forced himself to not stop. Ribs were supposed to crack, he thought to himself, that's how you get to the lungs. He could only hope he didn't somehow injure Jordan permanently.

Everyone searched their pockets for something to help but nothing had stayed with them in the cross between worlds. Not that they would have had much to help anyways, but the feeling of helplessness was only amplified with there being no need to search for something.

So they stood and watched as Tom went back and forth between chest compressions and breaths, holding his ear to Jordan's chest in between each set. He could hear the air rushing out of the unconscious man's lungs, but that came along with the bubbling of the water stuck inside his body.

Silent minutes passed, with no change. It seemed wrong to make noise while one of their friends was possibly dead.

Martha was the first to crack, burrowing her head in Wag's shoulder and quietly sobbing. Wag wrapped an arm around her small frame, and Tucker and Sonja reached for each other's hands, eyes fixated on the ground.

After countless amounts of repetition later, Tom sat back and watched his friend's chest. Beyond the breath he'd given Jordan, there was no movement… except…

Yes! It was slight, but Jordan's chest rose! "Jordan!" Tom cried, attacking his chest with new hope.

The rest of the group had started at Tom's shout, but they gathered closer and watched Jordan's face. Was that a grimace, or just a fake movement made by Tom? Did his lips just move?

"Come on Jordan, wake up! You can't die on us that easily!" Tom encouraged with a grin, trying to hide tears.

Jordan's eyes snapped open, and he rolled over onto his side and promptly vomited. Tucker, in the line of fire, jumped out of the way with a yelp, but the rest of the group cheered his name. Jordan was alive!

Tom and Wag helped the weak man to his hands and knees to avoid vomiting on himself, then Tom gently rubbed his back as he let all the water he'd breathed violently leave his body.

Even after the majority of the water was gone, he continued to dry heave, tears coming to his eyes as he whimpered and cried. Finally, he sat back on his legs, putting his face into his hands and sobbing heavily.

"Oh, Jordan, you're ok, it's ok. Shhh." Sonja cooed, sitting down beside him and wrapping her arms around him, sharing her half-dry warmth. Martha accidentally hit a tender spot on Jordan's chest and he yelled in pain. She immediately apologized and he accepted it with a small nod.

Tom stood, swaying, and motioned to Tucker.

"Gimme your glove."

He paused in the middle of wringing out his hat he had smartly stashed it in his pocket before they'd all jumped. "What?"

"Gimme your glove."

"Why?"

Tom rolled his eyes. "Cause it's the closest thing to a rag around here, and Jordan needs to wash his face and mouth. Actually, gimme that too." He snatched the hat out of his friend's hands, and took the glove from where it was sitting on the ground. Tucker glared at him for a few seconds, trying to gather the energy to yell at him, before huffing and continuing to try and wring out his clothes. Now that Jordan was breathing and conscious, Tucker put his energy into scanning their surroundings.

Sonja and Martha had managed to get Jordan sitting up on his own, hugging his knees and breathing heavily. The man stared at nothing and Tom wanted to cry. Those eyes shouldn't be that vacant, not ever. They should be bright, full of light and happiness.

He dunked both Tucker's hat and glove into the pool, filling the hat as much as he could with water his friend could wash his mouth out with.

Martha immediately took the glove and gently gave it to Jordan, guiding his shaking hand up to his mouth. He barely responded to her touch, allowing her to wipe at the vomit on his chin and cheek.

Tucker cringed at the sight of his soiled glove, and quickly turned around and began digging into the wooden planks stuck in the ground. Wag ran up the hill in search of trees, or houses, or any sign of someone living from the land. Already the sun was halfway across the sky, and they needed to find a place to hide from the monsters with Jordan in his current state.

"Here, Jordan. Cup your hands, and you can wash your mouth out," Tom nudged his friend's legs as he kneeled and held out Tucker's hat, still decently full of water and dripping.

Jordan's reaction was immediate and surprisingly explosive. He jerked back, knocking Sonja down and cringing. "No!"

Tom's heart broke at hearing his cracked voice laced with fear. "Come on Jordan, don't you want to get all that nasty stuff out of your mouth?" He shook his head, his body shaking both from cold and fear.

"No water. I'm... I'm fine." He tried to fake a smile, but his rapid breathing devolved into a cough. Afterwards, he spat on the ground in front of him, a watery yellowish color.

Sonja and Tom exchanged glances, realizing that fighting this battle probably wouldn't be worth it with Jordan in this state. And a gross mouth wasn't that big of a deal anyways, if Jordan didn't mind. The zombie skinned man sighed, dumping the water onto the ground and trying to wash away the vomit, which was already starting to stink in the still air.

The girls quietly mumbled kind words to Jordan, rubbing his back and brushing his wet hair out of his face. Jordan focused solely on bringing his breathing back under control. With nothing else to do to help until they found or made shelter, Tom stood and finally surveyed the world they'd arrived in.

They had landed in what he assumed was the base of surrounding hills. In the distance, weirdly shaped cliffs scraped against the sky. He tilted his head all the way back, as if he would see a dark hole in the sky that they had fallen from. All he did was blind himself.

What caught his eye once he blinked away the sunspots was the odd colors that popped out at him from the land. There was almost no green, and instead his eyes were drawn to the odd transition between the sand beneath his feet and the course dirt a few meters away. Stone poked out of the earth in odd places, and there was podzol and grass side by side.

After glancing back and reassuring himself that Jordan would be alright, he trekked up the steep hill to get a better survey of the land. "What a great start we've had already," he groaned to himself, vaulting over a jumble of loose cobblestone and gasping at the sight laid out before him.

The ground was mismatched, five by five patches of different blocks splattered across the ground like paint, and most didn't even match the environment. His eyes bulged at each new oddity. There were wooden planks of all kinds built into the ground, but the pattern was too random to be anything but a coincidence. Blocks like sponge and obsidian sat side by side, and there were gold blocks sitting right out in the open!

Tom spun to call out to Jordan and the girls about this odd and interesting world, but something stopped him.

A flicker of movement, so fast he wasn't sure he'd seen it. Then another, across him on the crest of the opposite hill.

Then a sharp whistle from behind him, and four wolves leapt from their hiding places and raced own the hill towards his friends.

Tom started to shout a warning, but something swept his legs out from under him and he crashed to the ground, hitting his back so hard it knocked the wind out of him. He vaguely heard excited yipping nearby.

Gasping, he tried to heave air into his chest. But the sight of a person appearing out of nowhere and starting down at him knocked it out again.

The figure wore a hood, and as such their face was in shadow. One thing stood out despite that, and that was the stranger's eyes. They glowed with energy, bright as a star, and they were enchanting. The figure stretched out a helping hand, and Tom took it without breaking eye contact.

Once on his feet, the stranger glanced down into the valley where the rest of the heroes were surrounded by wolves, on alert but not attacking. Then they turned back, and spoke in a lilting voice that somehow suited the rest of their appearance.

"Who the hell are you people?"


	2. Home Sweet Home?

Tom gaped at the girl. He finally broke out of his admiration for her strangely colored eyes and got into a fighting stance. "Who the hell are _you?_ " he growled, ready to throw a punch if he didn't like her answer.

She laid a hand on the sword at her side but didn't draw it. The girl regarded Tom coolly, her golden eyes calculating and slightly unsettling. She lifted her hand and he tensed, ready for an unarmed blow.

Instead, she brought her other hand to her mouth and whistled shrilly.

At once, four of the five wolves sat back and cocked their heads innocently, as if they hadn't just been growling menacingly. But one, the smallest of the bunch, continued to growl. Its tail swished back and forth and its head sat in its front paws.

"Silly!" the strange girl called. The small wolf's ears perked, and it sat back happily with the others.

"Sorry for the scare. Can't be too careful, you know?" She shrugged, brushing a stray hair back into her hood. "Silly's just a bit excitable."

"Tom! Are you alright?" Martha called from the base of the hill. The mystic seemed to want to move up to his aid, but was unsure whether the wolves would turn hostile.

A quick whistle solved that problem, and sent the five animals trotting back up the hill towards their master. Although, the smallest's movement would be better described as a scamper.

"Sorry! They won't hurt you, I promise. May I come down to them?" The girl called to the group, then directing her question at Tom.

He stared at her for a while, debating whether he should knock her out or not. Instincts told him not to trust this girl, but a glance at the wolves by the girl's side told him right now was not the time.

Maybe later. When he had some more gear.

"Yeah..." he started climbing down the hill to get to his friends first. The stranger made a hand gesture to her wolves, and they all laid down and put their noses in their paws.

"Tom, who is that?" Sonja hissed to him as he approached his friends. Behind him, the girl expertly climbed down the hill where the drops were more sheer.

"I don't know!"

"You... don't know..." she raised an eyebrow and sighed at him, firmly pushing him aside as the other girl approached. "S'cuse me, but my _friend_ here," Sonja stressed the word 'friend' as she glared at Tom, "seems to have forgotten his manners and didn't ask your name."

The girl blinked, her golden eyes confused for a second. "My name... my name is... Star." Her eyes swept over the group and landed on Jordan, who was staring through her with blank eyes. "Is your friend ok?"

Sonja looked over her shoulder back at him. Jordan was shivering, his hair hanging in strings in front of his eyes. His glasses had fallen off in the water, so the glassy look he had in his eyes was all too easy to see. But who was this girl to care?

Star began searching her pockets for something, and a moment later came up with a potion bottle, pink with a soft glow to it. She held it up by her face, the potion casting a strange reddish tint across her cheek. "Here, give him this. Should get him up and moving for you guys."

Sonja took the neck of the bottle and went over to Jordan, popping it open and helping him take miniscule sips. The possibility of the bottle being poisoned didn't cross her mind until after he had drained the whole potion, by which point she decided to just keep her mouth shut.

Tucker chose this moment to emerge from the cave he'd been digging, holding a wooden pickaxe. "Dude, I don't know what's up with this world, but I just dug through like three different blocks and found no stone underneath. Anyone want some pink clay?" He threw the offending blocks on the ground, glaring at them like they'd killed his family.

"Oh, hello! If you need stone, there's a bit there! And If you dig underneath the jungle wood slabs, there should be some as well." Star piped up helpfully.

He looked around for the source of the foreign voice, and his eyes widened at the white-hooded figure standing amidst his friends. "Who the hell are you?"

Star laughed a little, a soft ringing that warmed everyone to the tips of their fingers and toes. "My name is Star. So, how long have you all been travelling?"

"Too long!" Tom groaned, stretching his arms out. "I haven't slept in forever!"

At the mention of sleep, Star tilted her head back and studied the sun, sitting low on the horizon. The motion knocked her hood back from her head, and Tom and Tucker both let out an involuntary gasp.

The girl was young, her skin smooth and the color of melted caramel and complemented by her glinting golden eyes. Her face was thin, almost princess-like with her angular chin and jaw. Star's hair was pinned tightly against her head, plaited into a braid and then wrapped around on her scalp. The color surprised them the most. With her skin and eyes, the brilliant silver-white of her hair stood out like a beacon light. It matched the unstained white of her robes, giving her the ethereal image of an angel. And when her hair glinted as she turned her head, they noticed golden thread braided within the silver.

"Damn, night already? Where are you guys based? I can help you get back, if you want." Star offered, pulling her hood back up onto her head.

Jordan stood up, his breathing under control and color returned to his skin. "We actually just got here, so we don't have a base yet." He used his sweet voice, the one he always uses when he wants someone's help but won't ask them directly, to be polite.

Star looked at the group with mild surprise, caught off guard. "Oh, well, in that case... you all can bunker down in mine for the night, if you want. I have food and you can... regroup. I have some extra materials too, since it looks like you don't have any tools or armor?" Her voice carried a question of why, but none of them volunteered an answer. The girl's offer was genuine, and the heroes barely gave it a second thought. Free food and gear? Hell yeah.

She took their silence as a cue to turn and sprint back up the hill. She shouted a single word, "Home!" and her wolves jumped to their feet. The smallest yipped excitedly, and began prancing around the others as Star scaled the cliffside up to where they waited.

"You guys coming?" the girl called down to the group of heroes, who broke away from staring and gathered themselves to begin the climb.

At the top, Star began running ahead as the sun finally sank below the horizon line. Sonja and Tucker fell in line together, and Wag hung back to keep pace with Martha.

Tom came up beside Jordan, who was trying to avoid trampling over the youngest wolf, who seemed bent on tangling between his legs. He was laughing, and there didn't seem to be anything wrong with him now; the potion had restored his bluish skin to a healthy tan, and his breathing was back to normal.

He shot out and grabbed his friend's arm when Jordan lost his balance after the wolf knocked against his foot with its strong tail, protecting him from more injury. Wag and Martha ran past them as they stood, hand in hand, waiting for Jordan to regain his balance enough to continue the run.

"I'm glad you're ok..." Tom murmured, more to himself than Jordan, looking into the distance instead of the man next to him. Jordan smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

"Of course I'm ok. Thanks to you, anyways." He punched Tom's shoulder with his fist, though it was actually just a light tap. "C'mon, mobs are spawning." He pulled out of Tom's loose grip and began running again, following after the shadows of Martha and Wag.

Tom stared after him for a second before following. "' _Of course I'm ok',_ really Jordan?" He grumbled to himself, feeling like Jordan didn't quite understand how close he had come to death.

' _Stupid man,'_ he thought, with just a touch of fondness underneath his harsh words. Even in his mind he couldn't pretend to be mad for long.

Running through this quilted world was a much different experience with twilight descending. Each step was a surprise texture, since Tom couldn't see well enough to discern what he was stepping on. Once, he fell into a one block deep hole because he had thought it was black wool. And the skyline was extremely odd, with skinny tall peaks towering high above the more rounded, slopes hills. And some of the mountains looked unnatural, as if someone had built them by hand and messed up somewhere along the line.

Tucker and Sonja, leading their ragtag group, followed Star up to the base of one of the tall mountains they'd seen earlier, just as quilted as the rest of the world. It was at this point that they'd lost Star, her footsteps fading rapidly away. They looked around. It was extremely hard to orient themselves when the world offered no landmarks aside from the mountains and hills. "Star?" Sonja called, her hands cupped around her mouth and carrying her voice. Jordan and Tom finally caught up as the girl appeared again, her illuminated eyes alerting them to a two block high opening they hadn't noticed before.

"Come on!" She motioned for them to follow her, then disappeared back into the opening.

The heroes ducked into the dugout base, and the sight they walked into was oddly... normal.

The walls and floor were all dirt and grass, with chests lining the walls up to the ceiling made of cobble. To their right through a two block wide doorway was an open area full of tilled soil, with wheat, carrots, potatoes and beetroots planted in neat patches and lit well by glowstone in the ceiling. Beside them, Star had allocated land to crops with different growing conditions like sugarcane, cactus, pumpkins and melons. And beyond that, they could see splashes of soft color from flowers lining the back of the farming area. Some of them caught some soft moos, oinks and clucks from somewhere within the room.

To their left, a staircase down through the earth was the only reminder of the strangeness of the land outside. The blocks changed horizontally every five blocks, but there was no order to how they were split on the vertical axis. Some blocks extended the full height of the staircase wall, but others broke up into two or even three different levels.

Tom spotted a bright blue block about halfway down that he immediately recognized as diamond. His eyes widened and he elbowed Jordan and pointed at them. Jordan noticed the mischievous glint in his eyes and thought to keep Tom away from anything of Star's, lest he take something with his five-finger discount.

Star leaned past the heroes and replaced the blocks of the door, two inconspicuous pieces of sand that hid this little place from the outside. She then calmly walked back into a room they hadn't noticed before, the entrance being in the corner of the dimly lit base. They vaguely heard sniffling and shuffling as Star's beloved wolves settled down.

They stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with their limbs and unsure if they were allowed to take anything.

Well, almost all of them. Tom began rummaging through chests as soon as Star left his sight.

"Tom! We're guests, you can't just take her stuff!" Martha scolded, which Tom promptly ignored. After a few squeaky chests had opened and Star hadn't poked her head out to yell at them, Tucker and Wag followed Tom's example.

"Guys..." Sonja sighed, not really doing anything to stop them.

"Come on Sonj, she's got everything! Look, this entire chest is full of diamond and iron blocks!" Tucker told her, holding up the blocks in question. "She won't miss a couple, right?"

Jordan rolled his eyes as he watched his friends stuff their pockets. "If she sends her wolves on you, I'm gonna watch you guys and laugh."

"Noted. Look, she's got a bunch of leather and eggs in here." Wag grabbed a handful of pieces of leather and rabbit hide and hid them away in some hidden inner pocket in his robes.

"Dude there's like five chests over here full of health and regen pots. Who the hell needs this many potions?" Tom exclaimed, sneaking a few into his own pocket.

"Aw, fuck yeah, horse armor and spawn eggs! How the hell did she get these?" Tucker exclaimed.

"Hey!" The rummagers shrunk back as Star poked her head out of the other room. "You guys can take what you might need, but leave that wall alone. Those things aren't replaceable." She pointed to the wall of chests Tucker had been searching though, motioning for him to move away.

Tucker very reluctantly put the items back into the chest he'd taken them from. Star then tossed a diamond pickaxe to him, which he clumsily caught. "Here, use that and you can grab some stuff from my mine if you need it." With that, she left the room again.

"Give me that!" Tom demanded, grabbing at the tool in Tucker's hands.

"No! Get away from me Tom." Tucker retorted, rapidly descending down into the mine. Tom followed closely on his heels. Their arguing voices echoed up through the tunnel even after they turned down a mineshaft and disappeared from the group's sight.

"Lively pair, aren't they?" Star approached them again, this time meddling with her hair and unthreading the gold from her braid. "You guys don't have to stand there, come on in! I'll make some beds." She lead the group, minus Tucker and Tom into the room she had been coming in and out of.

There were a couple more chests, though nothing as intense as the first room. The real draw in this room was the walls of books. Floor to ceiling, three walls out of the four were built in bookshelves and full of leather bound books.

Jordan and Sonja stood to the side as Star bustled around, clearing away the furniture she'd had in the room and placing down beds in a row, six in total. They examined the books on one of the shelves. They looked relatively new, judging by the leather covers, but it was cracking along the seams and it was clear the books were well loved. Sonja lifted her head and rested a finger below tiny gold letters printed on the spine of one book.

"'Sunni - 3'? What's this, a weather report?" Jordan snorted.

"Yeah, she kept a log of every time she sees the sun. Who knows, maybe it rains like every day in this world and we just got super lucky," Sonja giggled, then gasped slightly as something ran into the back of her knee and made her stumble.

"No!" Star shouted at Jordan and Sonja, and they both spun around and brought their arms to their sides in an instant. Star glared in their direction and they both took a step away from the wall.

Then Sonja noticed the animal jumping around at her feet. Her face lit up when the wolf put its paws up onto her legs, and she dropped to her knees beside the excited animal and scratched it behind its ears and under its jaw. She talked to it in a soft, higher pitched voice as it jumped around in her lap, rolled over to have its belly rubbed, then eventually settled down between her crossed legs, resting its tiny head on her knee.

"Silly, I said no! Sorry, here I'll move her," Star sighed, holding her arms out for the pup.

"Aww, she's fine, she can sit here, I don't mind," Sonja cooed, petting the wolf protectively. The girl shook her head and opened her mouth to say something, but when Silly whined happily and flicked her ears at Sonja's loving touch, she decided not to.

"So, her name is Silly?" Jordan squatted beside Sonja and rubbed the wolf's ear. The tiny creature leaned her head into his hand and nuzzled his palm. His heart melted a little at the adorable animal.

Star placed a final bed in the line of six beds and turned to nod at him. "Yes. Well, her full name is Epsilon, but I call her Silly."

"It suits her," Wag pipes up, breaking away from his whispered conversation with Martha to approach the other wolves, sleeping peacefully in the corner in one big pile. He reached out a hand to pet the bottom one on its nose. "So, what about these guys?"

"I wouldn't get too close to them. Alpha tends to bite when she's woken up from her nap," Star deadpanned, staring seriously at Wag. He cast a glance at the unassuming dog pile and slowly retracted his hand. The wolf he'd been about to pet snorted and flicked its ear. Then it raised its head when Star began laughing.

"I'm kidding. Alpha's a softie, really. But still, I wouldn't wake any of them up. It's been a long day." Her eyes shifted to Alpha as the older wolf raised her head and looked at Star at the sound of her name. "Night, Alpha."

The wolf cocked its head, but she did what they assumed was a wolf shrug and laid back down again, asleep in mere seconds.

"They're tired." Martha remarked. Then she stifled a yawn of her own, her cheeks turning slightly pink with embarrassment. Star just smirked and waved the four heroes in the room towards the row of beds.

"These aren't here just for show, you know. Get some sleep. Tomorrow you guys can explain to me who you are and what the hell you were doing drowning in a tiny pond." She jabbed playfully at Jordan, sauntering towards the doorway. He flinched at her comment, but bit his lip and smiled past it.

As she ducked out the door, she immediately threw herself back into the room and against the wall as two hooligans by the names of Tom and Tucker sprinted in, arms full of diamond blocks and smiling like lunatics. In Sonja's lap, Silly woke up and sprang out of her embrace to investigate the new people.

"What did you two do, clear out my entire mine?" Star's eyes widened as they dumped their loot on the ground, and mumbling something to herself that none of them caught.

"Tucker, why? We don't need this much!" Sonja gestured to the stacks of blocks floating on the ground.

"You can never have too much, Sonja!" Tom countered.

"Besides, armor and weapons and tools for all six of us are going to cost a lot." Tucker reasoned. Martha rolled her eyes at the greedy look in his eye. Going to cost a lot, yeah right. Those shiny diamonds were just too tempting to resist.

"Alright, you crazies. I don't really care that you cleared out my mine, but please, worry about weapons in the morning. Your shouting is giving me a headache. Silly, follow!" Star groaned as she left the room. The wolf pup pranced around for a second, then decided to follow her owner.

Tom quickly gathered the scattered blocks and stowed them away, then he yawned loudly. "I'm beat!"

Jordan stretched his arms above his head. "Falling through the void for months without sleeping will do that," he mumbled, sitting down on the edge of a bed.

"And knocking me out, that might have been a cause as well." Tucker saltily snarked at his friend, who grinned back.

"What an asshole," Sonja muttered, fighting a grin at her boyfriend's expense. She took his hand and gently tugged him towards the two center beds, gratefully falling backwards onto one with a happy sigh. "Come on, Tucker, get over it and let's all get some sleep."

"I'm not sleeping next to you," Tucker told Tom flatly as he climbed next to Sonja. The zombie man shrugged and flung himself into the bed on the end, next to Jordan. He was out before a minute passed, if his throaty snores were anything to go by.

Wag and Martha then claimed the final two beds, on the other edge of the line. As they settled down, Wag cautiously wrapped his arms around Martha's waist, pulling her close. He brushed a stray hair out of her face and pressed a light kiss to her forehead.

"Love you, Martha," he mumbled into her hair, nuzzling her with his nose.

"Love you too." Her voice was thick, and in no time they were both asleep in each other's arms.

Sonja and Tucker quickly followed their friends' lead, mostly keeping to themselves as they slept, save for their fingers intertwined between them. Sonja's hood had ridden up her neck, pushing her hair out at odd angles, and Tucker's hat, still damp, fell back from his head and slowly toppled to his side.

Jordan laid on the bed silently, comforted by the sounds of his friends' calm breathing but not tired enough to sleep. He supposed nearly dying might keep him up.

Sighing and turning over, he came face to face with Tom. The normally hyper man's face was more serene than Jordan had ever seen before. A small smile crept across his face. This idiot was always able to make him smile, whether it was with his stupid shenanigans or his soft sleeping face.

The man felt something brush against his side, and when he looked down Tom's hand had wandered, and was now resting on top of Jordan's hip.

He rolled his eyes. Even in this dead sleep, Tom still invaded his personal space.

And yet, in this dim room with only the sound of sleepy breathing and his own heartbeat, he didn't mind the touch. He turned over to face his back to his friend, and when the arm snaked its way back up to his waist and rested there, he decided to let it slide.

In this new, unfamiliar world, he liked that at least one thing stayed constant.


	3. Calm Before The Storm

Jordan's mind whirled as he was thrown in and out of fragmented sleep, punctuated by nightmares of suffocation and attacks of mobs whose colors were _wrong_. His heart raced and it took him almost half an hour every time he woke up to calm himself down out of his frantic state. The process repeated, and did nothing but exhaust him. Deep breaths turned into gulps of air as he was pulled back into unconsciousness and his vision blurred as he drowned over and over again.

It only got marginally better when he was awake, and the only thing that grounded him to reality was Tom's hand that occasionally brushed against his side as the other man slept or Tucker's leg that was somehow invading his space. Jordan cherished the physical touch, grounding himself on it and reminding himself that he was not alone.

Finally, he gathered the energy to fling open his eyes and stay awake. He sat up and rubbed at his eyes, scrubbing away a trail of dried tears off his cheek as he scanned the room. Nothing had changed. His friends were all still fast asleep down the line of beds, with both couples now holding each other tightly in their sleep. The dogpile of wolves were still fast asleep in the corner, with the addition of Silly who'd curled up beside Alpha.

The man sucked in a deep, agonizingly slow breath. Then another. And one more. He focused his senses in on the mundane. The wrinkling of the bedsheets as Tom flipped onto his other side. The soft snores coming from the opposite side of the room. The soft blanket that Jordan was rubbing between his fingers.

Then, a sound invaded that wasn't part of the mundane. Shuffling footsteps he realized, approaching from right outside the door. He quickly laid back down and pretended to sleep, though there was no chance of that now.

A petite shadowy figure appeared in the entrance within moments of him lying down, which transformed into Star's white clad person once she turned towards one of the bookshelf walls. Jordan watched as she carefully made her way over to one of the bookshelves, furthest away from him, partially obscured by Tucker's foot.

The small girl stood there for a while, holding something in her hands and staring at it while facing the wall. He kept his breathing deep, feeling almost as if he were intruding on a private moment.

That is, until Tom kicked out in his sleep and nailed him right behind his knee. Jordan cursed inadvertently and Star's head whipped around, her golden eyes glowing brighter than he thought was possible as he curled his knee to his chest. He silently cursed his friend for being both a restless sleeper and a strong kicker.

"You were awake... the whole time?" Star hissed. Cautious, the older man sat up and nodded slowly.

"...Why?"

"Huh?"

Golden eyes rolled. "Why are you awake? All of your friends passed out the instant they got into bed."

Jordan grabbed at the edge of the blanket, twisting it and fidgeting with it. "I... just can't sleep. Bad dreams."

Something in her expression softened. "Yeah, they suck." Star turned back to the bookshelf, tapping her thumb against the spine of the book in her hands as she thought. Suddenly, she slide the book back onto the shelf with a satisfying clunk and headed towards the door, glancing over her shoulder at Jordan as she left the room.

"If you really can't sleep, I can show you something cool." With that, she left.

The man stared at the doorway for a second before looking around at his friends sleeping peacefully beside him. He should try to get some sleep. None that he'd gotten so far would hold him over for the next day, he was sure.

But the thought of facing his nightmares again pulled him out of the bed and sent him cautiously padding after the strange teen with the golden eyes.

"Star?" he called out quietly after he left the side room. A waving shadow from the other room caught his attention, and he poked his head into the room. Vibrant colors and bright light assaulted his eyes and he squinted against the natural beauty.

He'd gotten a quick look of the room before, but as he stepped past the threshold he realized he hadn't fully comprehended how beautiful a farm and grassy green field was ever before.

Star had everything organized, with crops like wheat and carrots planted in nine by nine plots while melons and pumpkins lied past them in rows. She had sugar cane and cactus growing in efficient configurations and as he moved further into the room, posts of jungle wood with cocoa growing on them popped out.

"It's so... normal in here," Jordan mumbled to himself, brushing his fingers against a fully grown wheat crop in wonder.

The teen stepped out from a little room a bit ahead of where he was stood and caught the last part of his comment. Her head tilted to the side in mild confusion. "I mean, I don't know if normal's the word... But there is beauty in it, I guess."

"But... the world outside is so... so..." Jordan waved his arms emphatically to prove his point. Star just stared at him.

"The world outside is so... what?" She stepped closer to him, curiosity and humor in her shining eyes. She clearly thought he was some kind of crazy, or at the very least sleep deprived.

He blew out a breath of air and a strand of hair fluttered into his face. "You know, it's so... not normal! All the blocks are out of place! There's no grass, or trees, or beaches, or anything!"

The girl's stare got more incredulous. Then she broke a smile and laughed. "Oh, I get it. Nice joke." Star brushed past him and nimbly hopped around the crops and waved for Jordan to follow her. "C'mon, let's go."

"I'm not joking, Star," He added, following after her and taking extra care not to trample any crops. "This land is weird, I've never seen anything like it."

"And I suppose you're also going to try to tell me the sky is yellow and creepers are red." Star rolled her eyes at the impossibility.

"Hey, red creepers exist!"

The teen snickered as she lead him past a fenced in pasture with docile cows, bleating sheep and clucking chickens padding around. One pig looked up as they passed, quickly deciding the humans weren't there to feed it carrots and going back to sniffing at the ground.

Jordan reached out a hand and rubbed the ears of a sheep that stuck its head over the fence, smiling when it bleated happily in response.

"Up here," Star said, one hand on a ladder against the wall. She swarmed up it like a monkey and was soon out of Jordan's sight. He quickly followed her up, his eyes suddenly assaulted by darkness as he blinked rapidly to regain some sight.

He nearly fell back down the ladder as he blindly grabbed out for the next rung and grabbed at thin air, but his muscles froze and kept him stable.

"Star, what is up here?" His voice echoed back at him and a thought came to him. "You're not gonna kill me, are you?"

A snort answered his question. "If I was going to do that, my wolves would have ripped you apart the minute they surrounded you. Gods, you're paranoid as well as crazy." Jordan couldn't tell if she was teasing or not. He decided she was, for his own sanity.

It wasn't like he could do anything about it if she did choose to kill him, anyways.

Soft rays of silver light suddenly flooded the area, and Jordan took in a one by two hallway that lead towards a glass window. Golden eyes hovered as Star poked her head out from behind the wall, silently inviting him forward with a wave.

He cautiously clambered up onto the floor and approached the glass, gasping as he looked out.

The land was in shadow, with only the full moon on the horizon casting dull silver slivers onto the hills. Mobs upon mobs shambled around, and he watched an enderman grab a wooden block from a hillside and carry it proudly.

"Isn't it pretty?" The teen sighed, gazing wistfully out at the dark quilted world. He nodded slowly. "I come up here every now and again, when it all gets to be a bit too much. Calms me down."

"How can you be calm when there's that many mobs down there?" He asked, gesturing to the posse of skeletons not far from what he remembered as the door.

"They can't get at me. I did have an enderman steal a piece of my door once though, that skeleton's arrow hurt like a bitch." Star rubbed the joint between her shoulder and collarbone, and let out a long sigh.

They stood in silence for a while, each admiring a different part of the scenery. Jordan was still marveling at the fact that Star didn't seem fazed by the amount of hostile creatures just outside her door, even though it was near amounts he only remembered seeing during the blood moon in Ruxomar. He studied her out of the corner of his eye.

This girl had been through a lot, clearly. If the nonchalant attitude towards past injuries wasn't clue enough, the way she carried herself was a dead give away. Her hand was never far away from the iron sword at her side, which glowed dimly with enchantments. She stood tall and from what he could tell, she was well-toned beneath her white armor. And more than anything, she was closed off. Jordan couldn't really get a read on her, at least not as much as he would have liked. She gave off a similar feeling that Martha or Wag did, where they had a lot of baggage but no inclination to tell anyone what was bothering them.

Although, Jordan realized, she wasn't nearly as good as the other two were. As the teen took in a shaky breath, he noticed her shoulders shuddering and a tear running down her cheek, illuminated silver by the setting moon.

Unconsciously he found himself gently placing a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort her as best he could.

She stood still for a moment, then ripped away from his touch and stepping back, wiping her face furiously with her sleeve.

"Please... don't..." Star's voice wavered, and she rubbed the spot he'd had his hand on with her opposite arm. "Don't touch me."

"Sorry..."

Her eyes bored into his mind as Star stared at him, her mind racing a million miles a second. "I think you should go back to your friends now."

"I don't know-"

"Go! ...Please..."

He jumped as her voice cracked, and took no time to retreat back down the hallway. Once again he fumbled with the top of the ladder, clinging tightly to it until both his feet were planted.

As he descended, he thought he heard a small cry echo out from above him.

He squinted as he placed his feet back onto the grassy ground of the farming area, comforted by the snorts and scuffling of the penned animals. A chicken came strutting over to him and regarded him with its dark beady eyes. Jordan could almost hear the chicken mocking him with its cluck.

"Do you know what's up with her?" he asked the animal, who only tilted its head and pecked at the ground in response. "She's so hard to understand. She shows me her secret little hidey hole and then like five minutes later asks me to leave."

The chicken clucked.

"I know, it is kinda rude isn't it?" he commented, reflecting on the fact that he was talking to a chicken. "Why she gotta be darude?"

Jordan chuckled at his stupid joke. The chicken wasn't amused. It walked away, and the man stifled a yawn.

He rubbed at his eyes and made his way back out of the small paradise, into the chest room and back into the side room where he crawled into bed and curled up, asleep in mere seconds.

Jordan didn't even notice when Tom's arm found its way around his waist again, as the younger man searched for something close and familiar.


	4. Going Up In Flames

Fire.

It suffocated him, eating all the oxygen from around him and only leaving slivers for him. He took shallow, quick breaths, trying to steal the air back from the greedy flames and take it for himself.

The fire flickered around him, and he batted it away when it ventured too close for his liking. It was solid, but also fluid, and warm. But each hit sent pins and needles shooting up his arm and vibrating throughout his body.

Tom knew from prior experience that the feeling would only get worse if he tried to dash through the flames to the clear space beyond, but he still dove headfirst into it and tried to wade his way through the hungry fire, needing more than anything to escape.

His legs gave out within seconds and he collapsed to the ground, tingling all over. The flames pressed down on him as he pulled himself back to the eye of the fiery storm. Tom laid on the ground, shuddering uncontrollably and sucking in as much of the limited oxygen that he could.

"Why..." he groaned weakly, using all the air in his lungs to ask a question he didn't expect an answer to.

The flames hissed and popped, whispering a response he couldn't understand. Then they began closing in, slowly but surely bearing down on his prone form.

Tom stumbled to his feet, ignoring his body screaming against him. He kicked out with his numb legs, wincing when a tongue of fire wrapped around his ankle and sending him crashing back to the ground.

Red and orange snakes slithered around him, striking out and sending pulses of electricity through his entire body. Others curled around his limbs and stretched him in all directions.

The zombie man struggled against the tendrils but it was useless, his body stopped doing what he wanted and it was all he could do to continue to draw breath.

 _Syndicate._

Tom struggled to raise his head, fighting every dead nerve in his body to look up to the place the voice came from. He was aided as a fiery hand threaded through his hair and yanked his head back.

"Fuck!" he swore, taking in a deep breath as he suddenly realized he could breath again. Tom let out a long string of curses as the numbness faded and the pins and needles returned with vengeance.

"What the hell do you want from me!?" The man cried out, involuntary tears springing to his eyes as his tingling nerves began to tremble and ache.

 _Stop fighting for a moment._

"Fuck you!" Tom shouted.

 _Watch yourself, Syndicate._

"Who the hell are you?" he growled, tugging against the tongues of flame. A low rumble travelled through the tendrils, and he realized it was a laugh.

The fire suddenly retracted, pulling away from Tom and reforming a few feet away. Caught off guard, he fell flat on his face. His arms shook as he heaved himself onto his knees. He drank in as much air as he could, coughing as his lungs were irritated by the smoke and dust the fire left behind.

 _Syn, look at me._

Tom's eyelids fluttered; he was suddenly extremely tired. Something in the room was draining his energy. With an enormous effort he lifted his head to see a pair of feet hovering a few inches off the ground.

The fire that had only recently been holding him down was now formed into a body, reaching out a hand to help him to his feet. He grabbed it without thinking, letting the being pull him up. The touch sent a thrill through his arm, but it didn't hurt like it had before. It was now only a pleasant tingle.

He lifted his head to look at the being's face, but the fire it was made of flickered uncertainly, and he couldn't discern any facial features. "Who the hell are you?" Tom asked, all malice gone, left only with simple curiosity. The fire being laughed again.

"What, you don't recognize me? It's been awhile, but I thought your memory was a little better than that." A grisly smile formed in the general area of the being's face.

The zombie man started and he searched the thing for familiarity. The flames continued to flicker, but now that he was looking, the dark eyes within the fire were unmistakable.

Tom sank to one knee and bowed his head, shaking from adrenaline. "My Lord, I..." his mind went blank. What could he say? What does one say to a god that died by his follower's hands? That he was sorry for betraying him and killing him back in Mianite?

Because he wasn't. He'd tried to be. But he couldn't. Even if the guilt had eaten away at him for months now. Even if this dream of fire and brimstone haunted him ever since that night. He wasn't sorry. His loyalty to his friends would always come before the loyalty to his god, no matter what that might cost him.

But this wasn't Dianite from the world of Mianite. The energy emanating from the fiery body in front of him was completely different. It wasn't as intrusive, not as angry. He didn't feel like he had to walk on eggshells to avoid invoking the wrath of this god.

No, the being in front of him felt less like a cruel dictating master and more like a familiar friend. He didn't exactly believe in auras or anything like that, but the fire felt kind, in a clarity that only existed in dreams. And when it knelt beside him and wrapped him in a warm, pleasantly tingly embrace, the tears that ran down his cheeks were from nothing but happiness.

 _Don't say anything, Syn._

"But, I..."

 _There's no time for you to stutter out some half assed apology that you don't even mean. Look at me._

Tom raised his eyes to meet his god's.

 _Syndicate, this world is in ruins. You need to save it. Together, we can bring it back under control._

The zombie man blinked, not quite understanding. "What?"

Dianite's image rolled his eyes. _I wonder sometimes why I ended up with you as a follower._

Tom stood up and stepped back, energized by a second burst of adrenaline. He studied the god up and down as several snarky thoughts escaped his mouth without a filter. "I need to save it? Why? Why can't you do it? And why is it in ruins to begin with? Who messed up that job?"

Flames licked at him as they flared out from Dianite. A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. _I don't know Syndy, who messed up that job?_

"That's what I'm asking you!"

 _I don't have time to answer your questions, you'll have to find the answers on your own. Speak nothing of this to anyone, Syndicate. Just act normal for now, until I can gather the energy to speak again. Don't abuse your power._

"What power?" The man questioned as his god disintegrated into smoke and ash in front of his eyes. His hands flew up to his face to protect it, and a flyaway spark landed harmlessly on the back of his hand.

Harmless, until his hand seized up and fire erupted around it, the pins and needles painfully running through every nerve in his arm. Tom screamed and held his right wrist with his other hand, keeping it away from his body as his hand burst into brilliant red and orange flames.

He screamed again, pain and exhilaration swirling into one and all at once, a fire started in the distance. A tiny flickering pinprick of light he barely noticed past the flames around his green hand. His fingers clenched and unclenched to rid themselves of the pins and needles, and in doing so he sent the strange new feeling through his shoulders and down his back. It ran through his veins, every inch of his body more alive than he'd ever thought possible.

Tom tried to walk towards the fire that had started on the horizon, but he realized after flailing for a minute that he was hovering several inches above the void black ground.

The man tried to get back onto the ground, but he only succeeded in lighting more fires around him. The whole situation would be amusing if he wasn't so terrified and confused. The power running through him vibrated the very air, jumping from one finger to the next as fires sprouted. It crackled and sparked all around him, but it didn't hurt now. Tom laughed, lightheaded with the rush.

He was strong. Stronger than he'd ever been in the last world, even with every bit of magic he could muster. Nothing in Mianite or Ruxomar could compare with the sheer power he was experiencing. This wasn't human power. This was the power of a god.

He relished the feeling.

The world began to spin, the fires all blurring into one bright orange ring in his vision. Then it went black, and he opened his eyes to an unfamiliar room, dim and full of books.

It took him to realize where he was, and the answer didn't exactly comfort him. Tom flipped over and flung an arm around Jordan's waist, unabashedly using his friend as an anchor to this world, to push away his strange dream and get some actual sleep.

The older man snuggled against him in his sleep, and Tom nuzzled the back of his neck affectionately. He absently wished this behavior wasn't limited to dark nights where one or both were drunk, exhausted, or unconscious. But whenever he brought up the topic, Jordan would avert his eyes and awkwardly laugh and find some way to change the subject. Eventually, Tom had stopped asking.

He pecked his friend's neck with a featherlight kiss. One thing at a time. He wanted to figure out what the hell was up with this new world before he focused any energy on a problem he couldn't fix by throwing his fists at it. What they had wasn't broken, so why should he try to fix it?

Jordan hummed softly, and it set Tom's nerves at ease. There was time to worry and think later. Now it was time to sleep.


	5. Burning Bridges

Every muscle hurt. Tucker groaned as he attempted to readjust himself, every fiber of his being screaming at him to stop. He blinked and rubbed away the sleep in his eyes with one hand, with the other tightly held by Sonja.

"Morning, sleeping beauty," she teased, bringing their intertwined hands up and kissing the back of his hand. He grinned and turned over, brushing a strand of hair out of her face gently.

"Morning already?" he asked, yawning widely. Sonja yawned as well, ruffling his bedhead affectionately and half sitting up with her elbow on the pillow.

"Probably? It feels like it," the woman leaned forward and snuck a kiss from Tucker, sitting up completely. She let go of his hand to reach up to the ceiling in a stretch, moaning as her joints popped. Her shirt had ridden up in her sleep, revealing her smooth stomach.

Smirking, Tucker shot up and wrapped his arm around her waist, tickling her bare skin. Immediately Sonja squealed and fell backwards, writhing around laughing as he ignored her cries to stop.

"Tucker! Stoooooop! Tucker!" Sonja breathlessly shouted, giggling as she rolled onto him and knocked the breath out of him. Using the opportunity, she grabbed his wrists and held them to the bed with her weight.

"Enough!" she growled playfully, flushed from their wrestling and from laughing.

They gazed at each other, getting lost in each others eyes as Sonja pressed a longer kiss to his lips. Her thick hair cascaded over her shoulder and her eyes twinkled. Tucker felt his heart soar as they met in another, more heated kiss.

Excited scuffling and sniffling broke them apart, Sonja sitting up and letting go of Tucker. One of the wolves pulled itself out of the dogpile and shook its coat, trotting over to the doorway where Star leaned, watching the pair with amusement.

"No babymaking in my base, please." the girl quipped, glancing down and patting the wolf's head as it sat by her side.

The two went red. "We weren't-"

Star cut Sonja off with a hand movement. Her eyes flickered over everyone along the line of beds, lingering for a moment on Tom and Jordan, before speaking in a whisper.

"The sun's coming up. Wake up your friends and I'll get you all some food." Like that, she left their sight, her wolf padding calmly after her.

Tucker shared a glance with Sonja, who slid off the bed and moved over to Martha and Wag, gently shaking the older woman's shoulder. Tucker snatched his hat from the foot of the bed where it had ended up, and used it to cover up his fluffy bedhead.

"Tucker!" Sonja giggled, pointing behind him. He turned around and took in the sight of his friends snuggled close, still fast asleep. He looked back at her with a confused expression, to which she tried to contain her laughter. "Wake them up!"

Tom let out a huge snore and threw his arm out and away from Jordan, nearly smacking Tucker in the face. On instinct, he returned the blow and slapped Tom's shoulder, startling him awake.

The zombie man sat up and held his arm, glaring at Tucker. "What the hell, dude!"

"Breakfast time!" Sonja sung, half skipping over as Martha stood up and smoothed her clothes.

"You nearly hit my face with your flailing," Tucker said, as if that explained it.

"Up, up! Star's getting us food, let's go!" Sonja encouraged, grabbing Tucker by the hand and pulling him out of the room.

"Good morning, Wag," Martha cooed, gently waking her partner up by shaking his shoulder. Tom watched them be cute over his shoulder, then he leaned down and snatched the blanket off Jordan and shook him violently, nearly falling on him with the inertia.

"Jordan! Time to wake up!"

The older man curled up into the fetal position and groaned, burying his face in his pillow. "Nooooooo..."

"There's food..." Tom muttered into his friend's ear, watching as goosebumps raised on his neck. Jordan ducked away, holding his hand to protect the back of his head.

"Alright, alright, I'm getting up!" He insisted.

The zombie man crawled off the bed and ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing one stubborn lock that decided to stick out perpendicular from the side of his head. The bed sheets rustled as Jordan finally got up.

His suit was hanging off one shoulder, and his hair was scruffy and disheveled. Unlike Martha and Wag across the room, who were looking somewhat presentable, Jordan clearly just woke up from a night of restless sleep.

He straightened himself out and flashed his friend a bright smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You said there was food?"

Tom smirked and waved for his friends to head into the other room.

"Gamma, no," Star chastised her wolf, who was curiously sniffing at each item she grabbed out of her food chest. The animal backed off, though it was clearly still engrossed in the growing pile of food. The teen brushed a stray lock of silver hair back into her braid and closed the chest, studying the rather large stack of food.

She hoped it would be enough for the six for now. They seemed completely helpless, no weapons or armor, so she reasoned they probably didn't have any food left either.

Star stood as she heard two of her guests enter the main room, flicking the dirt off her legs. She motioned to the food she'd taken out of the chest and let them have their pick.

"Is everyone awake? We should probably get a early start, it's a bit of a long walk, plus you guys need to build your own base after we visit the temple."

The couple, their mouths full with food, looked at her strangely as the others came in.

"Hell yeah, I'm starving!" the zombie man cheered as he grabbed a couple baked potatoes and chowed down. More controlled, the man with the gray and red robe and the woman with lavender hair picked out bread and an apple, respectively.

Although, the woman didn't seem to intend to _eat_ the apple, instead staring at her reflection in it.

Finally, the last guest grabbed a bite to eat - a couple of cookies, she noted - and she raised her fingers to her mouth and whistled shrilly. The others in the room stared at her until they watched three full grown wolves and one half-sized pup bound into the room and sit in a circle around her.

The pup managed to sit still for about two seconds before Star pulled out a mutton chop from inside her sleeve. Then she jumped to her feet and put her paws up on Star's thighs, whining as Star hid the meat behind her back and pushed the wolf's head down.

"Silly, down." Star commanded, nudging the animal away with her foot. Epsilon padded back beside the second largest wolf, until she noticed the young woman in the room, and more importantly the porkchop she was holding. With an excited yelp, the pup bolted to her side and put her paws up on her knee, innocently looking up into the woman's face and at the half eaten food in her hand, tail wagging.

"Don't let her have that!" The girl demanded, leading one of the others in a string of actions that involves hand movements, clicks and noises and one word commands. The wolf responded immediately to each one, laying down, running back and forth, and barking sharply.

Star nodded eventually, and dropped the mutton she had. The wolf sat looking at her under she motioned to it, then the animal jumped forward and devoured it in three gulps. The teen knelt down, keenly aware of her guest's eyes on her, and laid a hand on the wolf's head.

"Why can't your daughter be as good as you, Delta?" she murmured, though of course she didn't get a response. Star looked up and glared at her youngest wolf, now being gingerly petted by the woman in orange. The pup was blissfully gnawing away on a chunk of zombie flesh that she'd dug out from who knows where. "God damn it, Silly..."

"Sorry! She just grabbed it from the corner before I could stop her, and I didn't want her to bite me..." the woman excused herself. Star rolled her eyes and approached her, reaching down and ripping the meat away from the pup without fear.

"She's about as threatening as a sheep," Star told the woman, ignoring the wolf growling in her lap. She dangled the flesh a few feet away, baiting Epsilon to pounce out of the woman's lap. The pup sat down and begged with her big eyes, but Star only raised her eyebrows and began giving the same commands she'd given Delta earlier.

Silly only managed to follow about a third of what Star wanted her to do, and eventually she threw the meat in frustration, letting the wolf chase it down.

"They're well trained," the man in the suit commented as she began running through the routine with Gamma. Star grinned despite herself, proud of her work.

"It's been a process, and Silly's really not taking to training. But we'll get there eventually. So!" she clapped, brushing the food residue onto her hip. "You're all full, hopefully, so let's saddle up and head out. Like I said, the temple is a little bit of a walk, but you guys have already come so far, that shouldn't be a problem, right?"

Star didn't wait for them to respond, and she didn't register the confused expressions on her guests faces. Her face started to light up as she spoke. "It's been so long since anyone besides me has come to visit! He'll be really happy!"

"Who?" Star stared at the man who'd spoken. She blinked.

"Uh... Mianite? That is what you guys came for, right?"

"You're a Mianitee?" Sonja asked, standing up from her spot on the floor. Tucker leaned forward as well, a glimmer of hope in his eye.

"No, what gave that away?" Star snarked, waving her bright white robed arms. "So, wait, you guys hiked from gods know where to find the temple even when you couldn't recognize a follower of Mianite when she stood right in front of you? Where did you guys _come_ from?"

The heroes exchanged glances, and Martha stepped forward with a soft smile. "We aren't from this world, Star, though you may not believe it. We come from a different realm," she explained, flipping her hair onto her back. "We just landed here yesterday."

"You... landed here?" The girl's eyes widened in disbelief. "From where?"

"From the sky," Wag bluntly said. Star blinked, clearly not buying a word.

"Quit messing with me."

Jordan shook his head. "We're not, Star. We really did come from a different world. That's how I... how, uh... that's how you found us." The man stuttered, folding his hands behind his back so that only Tom could see how they were shaking. "Which, I have yet to thank you for. You didn't need to do what you did, but I'm grateful for it."

The teen's golden eyes flicked back and forth over the six heroes. "It's... nothing."

"You gave him a potion and gave all six of us a place to sleep. Plus you let us mine out valuables from your mine. If that's what you call nothing, I want to see what a real favor from you would be," Tucker joked, to which she blanched at him.

"That was just basic human courtesy." She rested her hand on the hilt of her sword, running her thumb along the pommel as she thought. "You know, I kinda actually believe you guys."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Yeah, cause we're telling the truth!"

Star ignored him. "But, even if you didn't come specifically to see it, you still should join me in visiting the temple. Mianite will be happy he has six new followers." She grinned and nodded to herself, heading over to the entrance that would become her door. The girl whistled a few notes and her wolf pack padded after her.

"Uh, Star? We don't all follow Mianite."

The teen stopped, the top block of the door broken and letting sunshine in. "What do you mean?" She asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Well, Tucker and Sonja do, but the rest of us aren't."

Star turned around then, looking over the group with guarded curiosity. "Why?"

"There's no way I'd follow a boring god like Mianite! Dianite's the best!" Tom exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air and shouting a "Got 'im!"

"And I'm the lovely Ianite's champion." Jordan smiled at the memory of his goddess.

Star froze, the second sand block laying on the ground as her hand hovered right above where it had been.

"What did you just say?"

Jordan wavered as he recognized her tone, and quickly covered his tracks. "I said I'm Dianite's champion!" He corrected, elbowing Tom hard as he heard his friend open his mouth to argue. The man shot his friend a glare, and the zombie stared at him like he'd grown a second head.

Star wheeled around and stalked towards him. "No, that's not what you said. You said Ianite. Don't insult me by trying to backtrack on it."

The girl got in his face, the intensity in her eyes overriding the fact that she was standing on her toes and was still only eye level with his chin. And he wasn't exactly the tallest man in the world.

"Uh, sorry?"

"Look me in the eyes and say it, loud and proud. You're a follower of Ianite, aren't you? Go ahead, admit it."

He blinked, trying to step back and realizing she had her hand wrapped around his tie. "I... I..." The fire in her eyes made him hesitate. He knew he must be hallucinating, but Jordan could have sworn there were golden tendrils snaking around her, Star's eyes burning golden.

"I follow Ianite."

His voice was soft, quiet as he admitted it. Star stood still for a second, tension filling the room as his friends stood by, not sure what to do.

"I should have left you for dead."

She shoved him hard, throwing him against the wall with more force than a small girl like her should possess. His head whipped back and smashed against the chests on the wall. His vision spun and he dimly heard shouting voices through the fog that had suddenly clouded his mind. Faintly, he tasted blood and he'd later realize he had bitten his lip.

Footsteps registered in his brain, and he raised his head to see three Stars swimming in his vision. The middle one bent down and grasped his collar, getting so close he could feel the warmth of her breath. Cold metal pressed against his windpipe as she hissed one simple thing to him.

"Leave. Don't let me see you ever again, or I will kill you where you stand."

He didn't stop to think about it. Jordan stood up once she stepped back. Head pounding, heart racing, and swallowing blood.

He stumbled to the doorway, burst into the sunlight, and ran like his life depended on it.


	6. Split Up

Looking back on it, Tom wasn't proud of his reaction to Star's violent outburst.

It took more than thirty seconds for him to process what had happened - Star throwing his friend against the chests, her whispered warning, and Jordan stumbling out of the base - but by the time he finally managed to rip himself back into reality, he was gone. His ears were ringing and he shook his head harshly.

Tucker was shouting obscenities at the teen, who retorted just as sharply. Her hand was gripping her weapon tightly and she looked like she was a moment away from skewing him. Sonja was by her boyfriend's side, trying and failing to calm them down with a soft tone, her arms curled around his waist to keep him from charging her. .

"What the hell is your problem? You nearly snapped his neck, you fucking lunatic!" was only one of the things he overheard from the argument.

Martha and Wag had run to the door, calling after Jordan to get him to come back. From the sound of it, they weren't having much success.

He realized he was still standing in the same place. He hadn't moved an inch, even as the crazy teenager had nearly killed his friend.

A fire started in his gut. He didn't know if it was anger or adrenaline, but something drove him forward. In one smooth motion he stalked past Tucker and snatched the diamond pickaxe on his belt, swooped down to grab a few steaks from the food pile, and pushed roughly past Martha and Wag into the sunlight.

The world was bright and the beams of sunlight warmed his face, making him squint against the light. He scanned the multicolored landscape, but the only living things he saw were skeletons and zombies burning in the daylight.

Some movement off to the right caught his eye. He turned on his heel and took a couple steps forward, halted by Martha's voice.

"Tom, what are you doing?" she asked, rubbing her shoulder and wincing. "We shouldn't split up. Get Sonja and Tucker and we'll all go look for Jordan."

"No."

Tom's voice was hard, steadier than he felt. "Go to the temple, and listen to that girl. She's the key to everything. I'll find Jordan."

Wag shot towards him and grabbed his arm before Tom could get too far. "Key? She just tried to kill him, I don't think we should stick around!"

"Don't question me, wizard, just do as I say!" Tom's voice crackled with heat as he spit out the words. Then he sprinted off, faster than either of the two could think about following him.

Martha knew there were few things that got under Wag's skin. He usually had a very cool head, which helped tremendously under pressure. He never gave up or hit anything in frustration when his spells failed again and again, after he was sure he had gotten the magic right. He was a hard person to anger, and she loved that about him.

Well, love was a weird way to think about it, considering her previous relationship with his alternate self. But it was a good trait regardless.

That's why the look on the man's face after Tom disappeared on the horizon scared her to death.

To an outsider, one might think he was lost in thought, staring at the horizon with his minding wandering a thousand miles away. His eyes were unfocused and the man was picking at the edge of his sleeve, running a loose thread through his fingers.

Martha knew better. She'd only seen him like this twice before - both long stories - and she wished those had been the last. Tension pressed in around the two and she knew from experience that if nobody intervened, things might get messy.

The mystic took a hesitant step towards him. "James?" she ventured, in the softest voice she could muster.

He blinked - had he been staring that intently, that he hadn't been blinking? - and let go of the edge of his sleeve. Martha sighed a quiet sigh of relief. That was a good sign.

"Wh-what?"

She brushed her fingers against his arm, wincing when a spark jumped to her hand and shocked her. "You were on the edge there. Are you alright now?"

Wag took a shuddery breath, tilting his head to regard her with blood colored eyes. "I... think so?"

He raised his eyes to study the horizon. "Who the hell does he think he is?"

"I don't think he meant it, I'm sure he's just worried about Jordan running off like he did." She pacified, swallowing a bad taste in her mouth. Something in the undertones of Tom's voice reminded her of something. Something primordial, ancient, and all too familiar to her.

She pushed the idea away. It was paranoid and ridiculous, and there was no reason to spread panic when she was probably imagining things. She stroked her slender fingers down his arm in a calming gesture, feeling the tension dissipate.

"Come on Wag, let's go back inside. We can get some gear and explore the world." She smiled sweetly, ignoring the building pressure in the front of her skull behind her eyes. "I'm excited to explore this new world. It doesn't seem like it's been touched by many people. It's much different from Ruxomar."

Wag nodded, still slightly out of it. "It reminded me of the world of Mianite that way."

Martha's hand snuck down and she threaded her fingers through his much larger hand. The woman leaned against him and sighed, blinking heavily to push away the sunspots in her eyes. "That's your home world, right? And the world my dad and his… friends went to, after you left?"

The wizard rested his head on the top of hers, kissing her light purple hair. "I guess so." He squeezed her hand comfortingly. "Let's go steal some stuff from Star and explore the world."

She rolled her eyes, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. "We're not going to steal anything!"

"Maybe _you're_ not."

"Waglington…" she chastised, moving her hand to her temples and massaging gently. Wag let go of her hand and grabbed her shoulders.

"Are you ok? Your eyes bothering you?" She shook her head, smiling brightly at him

"I'm fine! Let's go thank Star and we can head out, alright?" Martha turned around and he let go of her shoulders.

The mystic made it three steps before her head exploded in a burst of stars and blinding light, and she dropped heavily to the ground. She felt bile rise up in her throat before the mystic spiraled into a very familiar darkness.

Tucker had known this girl was insane. Something about a girl who lived alone aside from a pack of wolves and wore all white clothes and had glowing gold eyes and white hair had just struck a bad chord with him.

He'd told her as much, with mixed results. On the one hand, he hadn't been run through with her iron sword or torn apart by her wolves, so he considered that a win. On the other hand, he couldn't seem to stop the torrent of insults and shouted words coming out of his mouth.

Vaguely, he felt someone's arms around him, keeping him far enough away from the teen that he wouldn't be able to throw a punch. That would have been suicide, as much as it would make him feel better.

"I'm just protecting myself!" Star shouted.

"You weren't protecting shit! You attacked him with no provocation!"

"Being a follower of that goddess is provocation enough!"

Tucker's eyes bulged out of his skull and his throat was raw from shouting at the top of his lungs. "What the hell is your problem? You nearly snapped his neck, you fucking lunatic! If you think we're going to follow you to this temple after you did that to our friend, you're fucking crazy." He huffed, out of breath from his tangent. Sonja tugged at his vest, silently warning him to stop and just leave it alone.

He took a deep breath and met the teen's eyes, burning with now controlled anger. "I have no idea what Ianite is like in this world, but in all other worlds we've visited, she is a good guy. Balance between good and evil and all that. I don't believe that this world is any different."

She evenly met his glare, pursing her lips.

"I believe you now. There's no way you're from this world, if you're actually _defending_ her." The girl crossed her arms, taking a deep breath.

"The so-called 'goddess of balance' is nothing more than a pretty face that hides a dark soul. She orders the murder of innocent people who did nothing to deserve the gruesome death they received." Her eyes surveyed the Mianitees in front of her, losing some of their golden luster as she forced herself to lower her sword. "Not to mention she destroyed our god's physical form for her twisted version of balance. If you're going to condone a person who follows a goddess like that, then you can leave right now."

Tucker and Sonja stared at her, trying to determine the joke. Sonja let out an involuntary giggle, and Tucker snorted.

"Ianite? A murderer? That's funny, but I don't believe you."

Star stayed silent, and motioned to the door.

Sonja pulled her hood over her head and gave the back of her boyfriend's vest a sharp tug. "Let's go."

Tucker seemed to have entered a silent staring contest with their teenage host, because he didn't move at all.

The woman rolled her eyes and stuffed some food in her pockets, idly rubbing the top of Epsilon's head.

The wolf pup yipped playfully and snuffled her hand, maneuvering her head so Sonja's hand would scratch behind her ears. Sonja grinned at the wolf.

Heavy footsteps brought her attention back into the room, and she looked over her shoulder to see Wag staggering in with an unconscious Martha in his arms.

Sonja shot to her feet and ran over to him. "What happened?"

Gently he set Martha down on the ground, letting her lean against the chests on the wall. Sonja knelt and brushed the hair out of the other woman's face and gasped as her fingers came away with blood on them.

"She... passed out, and I couldn't catch her in time. She hit the ground face first, and I think her nose might be broken." Wag squatted down beside his friend in orange and dabbed at his love's face with the edge of his sleeve.

"Visions?" Sonja whispered, inspecting Martha's nose from all angles without touching it.

"I think so."

"What happened to her?" Star asked from behind them, casting a shadow over the trio. Sonja stood up to block her view and smiled sweetly.

"It's alright, we've got it covered."

The teen raised an eyebrow and started searching her pockets. "A broken nose isn't something you can 'have covered' without supplies. And you are lacking those. Here."

Star offered a potion bottle. The contents glowed rosy pink like a potion of regeneration, but when Sonja gingerly took it and popped the cork, it didn't have the sweet, slightly metallic smell it should have. Instead, the woman's nose was assaulted by a collection of different smells that she scrunched her nose at, though she couldn't exactly say it was bad.

Someone snatched the potion away from her and Tucker held it at the neck by index finger and thumb. "What the fuck is in this? It smells like... like... I don't even know!"

Star took it back and counted off with her other hand. "Nether wart, glistening melon, golden carrot, pufferfish, a bit of blaze powder, some magma cream and a ghast tear. It's the ultimate potion to cure any illness or injury. Well... almost any. But a broken nose will be healed fine."

"How can that be safe? Sounds like you just threw everything you could into a brewing stand and got that." Tucker crossed his arms.

Star rolled her eyes. "Mistrust me all you want, but this is the same potion that your _friend_ drank after he nearly drowned. And sadly, he healed completely."

The two Mianitees glared at her, then looked at each other.

Then Martha groaned, and her stormy gray eyes fluttered open.

"Martha!" Sonja exclaimed, sitting down beside her. The mystic sniffed, and immediately winced and reached up to probe at her nose, whimpering.

"Here, Martha, drink this. It'll heal that nose quickly." Star offered the potion to her, and she didn't hesitate to chug the contents. Some dripped out of the corner of her mouth and she wiped it away with the heel of her hand.

"Thank you, Star," the woman whispered. Wag took the empty bottle from her and set it on the ground. She took his hand, "Wag, we need to go, now."

"Where?"

She gave him a withering glare, as well as she could when her eyes were still cloudy. "I... anywhere. Wag, I saw... lots. I don't understand, but... I think my vision is foggy in this world." Martha spoke in fragmented sentences, not finishing one thought before starting another.

"What did you see?" Wag spoke in a low tone. Martha shook her head.

"I... no, not here. Please, help me up." Wag stood and pulled her up with him. She touched her nose again, and blinked in surprise.

"My nose... it's... fixed?"

"Like new, right? What did I tell you? I'm not out to get any of _you_ , much as you might believe otherwise." Star spat, turning on her heel. "If you're going to leave, just take what you want and leave. I don't want to get my hopes up again."

The teen then stalked into her library with Silly on her heels, and the four were left alone.

Sonja and Tucker went to gather up the rest of the food, and Tucker grumbled when he realized Tom had swiped his diamond pickaxe. "It was mine, that asshole!"

"There are diamonds outside, let's just go get them instead."

"Yeah but now I gotta go through all the tiers in order to mine them!" Tucker moaned.

"Aww, there's no need to cry about it." Sonja butted in. The men raised their eyebrows, but Martha snickered quietly at the joke.

They distributed the food amongst the four of them, then left Star's base and faced the harsh sunlight.

"So... which way?" Sonja asked, turning her head one way and another and seeing nothing of interest.

"Away from here. Do you think any of our stuff fell out of the sky after we left?" Martha questioned hopefully. Tucker and Sonja shook their heads.

"I doubt it. Nothing but our clothes stayed with us when we landed in Ruxomar." Martha's face fell when Sonja told her that.

"Let's walk. I wanna hear about your visions." Tucker said, taking a few steps in a random direction to spur them on.

Martha cringed, a flicker of emotion before she composed herself. "I... I'm not quite sure I can explain it. It wasn't like any vision of the future I've seen before. There was so much that should be impossible."

Sonja tilted her head. "Like what?"

Martha sighed. "Well, first of all, this vision came in intense flashes, and they were so vivid, but words can't describe them. It was like being bombarded by raw emotions. I've only experienced that once before, and that... that was right before we... raised my uncle, in Ruxomar." Her breath hitched, and Wag took her hand instantly. Running his thumb over her knuckles, he provided some support for her to continue.

"And, then I saw snippets. I saw you guys - Tom and Jordan too - you turned on each other. You were running around and knocking each other out with no remorse!"

Tucker and Sonja shared a glance, smirking. "That sounds pretty normal for us, honestly."

"Yeah, sounds like the Purge. Hey, we should do that again!"

Martha stared at them, shaking her head. "Ok, maybe that wasn't the best example. But, I saw this world turn on us. We were swallowed by the ground. And the emotions... oh gods, they were horrible. Betrayal, and rejection, and so much anger." The mystic looked at her free hand, shaking from the memory. "And I saw Star... we will see her again. And... I saw some other man."

Tucker shrugged. "I would hope you'd see someone besides us. It would suck to think the only other person we meet is a crazy teenager with freaky eyes and a tendency to almost kill people.

Sonja pursed her lips. "Did you recognize the man, Martha?"

The woman shook her head, squinting and tilting her head back to look at the sky. "I think... possibly? He _felt_ familiar, but he didn't _look_ familiar. It was the opposite of Star."

The group stopped walking, and all three stared at the mystic. "What? Why are you looking at me?"

"You said it was the opposite of Star. Did Star look familiar to you?"

Slowly, she nodded her head. "She does. She looks extremely familiar, but I don't know who she looks like. You guys didn't think the same?"

They shook their heads. A chorus of 'nopes' and 'no ways' followed, and she chewed the inside of her lip.

"Perhaps it's an alternate version of someone I knew?" she mumbled, though she didn't sound too convinced.

"If that's an alternate of anyone in Ruxomar, I really hope she was nicer that this one."

"A different version of Alva? No, I don't think so. Freya? No, not her either." Martha continued to name different people, but rejected each.

The heroes started off again, passing over several hills and under an overhang before anyone interrupted her reverie. "Martha, how is it that the gods knew who our alternate versions were, back in Ruxomar?"

Martha glanced up.

"You have the same feeling around you. The same aura, if you will. Or the same soul, some might say."

"So you can see them too?" Tucker huffed air out of his nose.

Martha nodded. "Yes, the vision has come to me over time, and grown as I have learned to recognize the signs. I'll admit, it was quite a shock when I first truly examined Jordan's soul."

"Wait, why?" Sonja elbowed her boyfriend hard in the ribs. "Oww, what?!"

"You oblivious... Her dad is Jordan's alt, remember?" Sonja grabbed his collar and hissed harshly into his ear.

"O-oh, right..." She shook her head and shoved him away, telling him through her glare to apologize.

Martha held up her hands and tried to placate Sonja. "It's ok, really. My family tree isn't exactly the main thing we should focus on." Then the mystic locked eyes with Sonja, and her eyes cleared. "Honestly, Sonja, if I had to compare Star's soul to someone... I would probably compare it to yours."

Tucker, leading the group, stopped so suddenly that Martha ran straight into him before she had the time to stop. She crashed to the ground and brought Wag with her as she tried to pull on him to regain her balance.

"This world's version of Sonja is that lunatic!?" Tucker shouted, his voice echoing for miles across the empty land.

"Possibly? I don't know, my senses are really dull right now. And Star's soul felt... wrong."

"Wrong how?" Wag asked her, getting to his feet. She took his offered hand and pulled herself up.

"Wrong like her soul was guarded. I couldn't get a good grasp on it. It was slippery and kept escaping my senses. But really, that shouldn't be possible. A person can't control their soul, it's not tangible."

"But it is, since she did it."

"Maybe that's something that happens when you're crazy." Tucker scanned the land, only half paying attention to the conversation. Then, he had a thought and grabbed Sonja's hand and began walking briskly towards the near mountain.

Martha ran after the couple. "Tucker, you have the wrong idea about Star. She's not crazy, I think she's just misinformed."

"Why are you defending her? She called your mom a murderer, basically!" He retorted, his eyes fixed on the mountain.

"It's not the first time..." Martha muttered, quiet enough to where only Wag right next to her heard. "Death is not necessarily evil. It's not good, either. It just... _is._ And for gods, being responsible for death doesn't make them evil. It's all in their intentions."

"Yeah, ok, cool." Tucker waved his hand dismissively, his chin tilted upwards to take in the mountain. "What do you think?"

Martha looked up, then back at him. "What do I think about what?"

Wag gently nudged her arm with his elbow. "He's not listening to you anymore." She pouted and he rustled her hair with a cheeky smile. She batted his hand away and grabbed both his wrists when he went to do it again. The fight degraded into tickling and hair mussing and both parties ended up rolling on the ground in giggles.

"You want to have a conjoined base again?" Sonja asked. Tucker shrugged.

"Made it easier to defend back in Mianite, didn't it? If we're going to start the Purge again, I want that epic lava hallway we had before."

The woman took her boyfriend's hand and whispered sweetly in his ear. "Or maybe you just miss my company?"

She saw the hairs on his neck prickle but he absently kissed the side of her head and squeezed her hand. "That too. Plus..."

He trailed off as he caught sight of something interesting on the mountainside. He took off and Sonja raised an eyebrow at his retreating figure.

"Tucker?"

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped as her boyfriend seemingly melted into the side of the cliff. "Tucker!"

Silence, and Sonja opened her mouth to call for him again. Then, her blood ran cold.

"Sonj!" She heard her boyfriend shout in terror, and an explosion echoed out of where he disappeared.


	7. Hole In The Wall

Tom ran around for a long time in his half aware state. He cut down the occasional creeper or spider with his pickaxe if they got took close to him.

"Jordan!" was his only shout for hours; he didn't realize his voice was getting sore until he tried to yell and all that came out was a crackly squeak.

He kept circulating around two particular mountain peaks, scanning the surrounding land but never going too far from them. There was something about it, with the left's more organic shape and the boxy look of the rightmost one that felt... right.

Tom knew he was extremely close to finding his friend, but none of his shouts or searching yielded a response. The zombie man stomped his foot, stabbing the ground as a rush of anger shot through his veins.

Finally he stopped for a short rest, his chest heaving and hands on his knees. His mind wandered back to the night before, with certain moments carefully censored.

Specifically, he recalled his dream and the strange clarity it had in his mind. Normally, he either didn't remember his dreams at all when he woke up, or they faded within an hour.

But the fiery image of his dead god was vivid enough to give him chills. Words echoed in his mind. " _This world is in ruins."_ No shit Sherlock. " _Together, we can bring it back under control." "Don't abuse your power."_

The thing was, Tom didn't feel powerful. No, in fact, since the moment he woke up this morning, he'd felt more powerless than ever. First Jordan nearly drowned, then his friends had nearly been torn apart by a pack of wolves and their weird golden-eyed human leader. And top that all off with Jordan nearly having his neck snapped by said golden-eyed human leader.

Something at the edge of his conscience pulled Tom back into reality. He squinted as he looked around, as if that would help focus his hearing.

"-llo?" He recognized the voice floating down from the mountain peak.

"Jordan!"

"-om!" Tom yanked the pickaxe out of the ground and shoved it hastily into his belt. He ran up the mountainside like a goat.

"Where are you?" He called.

"I'm here!" The zombie man altered his course towards the sound, and he kept his eyes skyward, trying to catch sight of his friend at the summit. He gasped after parkouring across a large gap. How did Jordan manage this climb, with him being hurt?

"I'm almost there!" Tom shouted, wincing as his voice echoed.

"Be careful!"

"Of what?"

Tom cleared the edge of the cliffside and looked around. Jordan wasn't anywhere in sight. He took a few steps forward and stretched his neck to attempt to see further.

The world decided at that moment to stop making sense, and the ground below him gave out beneath his foot and he fell through the world.

The drop wasn't too deep, but it did knock the wind out of his lungs. He sucked in a deep breath as soon as his body allowed him to.

"FUCK!"

"Nice to see you too."

"Jordan! What the hell!?" Tom pulled himself onto his knees and looked around in the dim, green-tinged light that was seeping in through the layers of carpet. Without thinking he stood up and gasped when the carpet above his head bent, then gave and let his body pass through like he was a ghost. "Shit! Did I fucking die?"

"Hope not. If I'm dead, I'm in hell cause my head's killing me." Jordan's voice was muffled through the wool, and Tom redirected his attention to vaguely where the sound seemed to be coming from.

"Where are you?"

"Over here." A fuzzy gray shape waved at him from the wall, and he waded towards it. Tom shuddered as the carpet passed through his body with every step, cool and soft but completely wrong.

"Jordan, what the actual fuck?" Tom asked once he stood in front of the gray shape that was his friend. He motioned to the ghost wool all around them. "What is this?"

"I don't know, why are you asking me?" Jordan's voice pitched up defensively, and Tom rolled his eyes. "Do you have any food?"

"Yeah, here." He dug through his pockets and handed over some bread, watching as the gray blob in front of him writhed as Jordan chowed down. "How the hell did you manage to get up here? Your head-"

"I'm not bleeding or anything! I don't even think I have a concussion!" He announced happily, mouth full of half-chewed bread.

"But the mountainside! That climb took the wind out of _me!_ "

"And we both know how in shape you are." Jordan snickered.

"Jordan!" Tom whined. "I'm in shape!"

"Yeah, the path up here was sooooo tough to walk, wasn't it?"

The zombie man stopped. "Wait, what?"

The fuzzy gray shape grew as Jordan raised his head and looked up at him. "The path? You know, the one you came up?"

"There was a _path!?_ " Jordan snorted and started laughing.

"You climbed up the mountainside? Oh my god, Tom!" The gray shape fell sideways and Jordan's laughter echoed as Tom's ears turned red with embarrassment.

"Shut up! I was trying to find you! I didn't see a path!"

"Well, here I am!" Jordan opened his arms in a wide gesture with what Tom assumed was a huge grin on his face. "Now, uh, do you have a way to get us out of here?"

"Gods, I need to do _everything_ around here!" He moaned jokingly, groping in front of himself to find the wall. He swung his pickaxe and made quick work of creating a staircase back out into the world. Jordan took his outstretched hand after a bit of fumbling and was pulled to his feet.

They squinted against the sunlight and Tom immediately grabbed Jordan's shoulders roughly and pushed his friend's head down so he could look at it.

"Oww!" Jordan yelped, ducking away from Tom and gingerly holding the back of his head. "What was that for?"

"I wanted to see how badly she bruised you."

Jordan sighed and let his hands fall. "Could have just said so..." he mumbled. Tom took that as an invitation to take another look, though he was a little more careful this time around.

The man flinched when Tom lightly brushed his fingers against his hair to part it, to reveal the skin underneath. "Be gentle!" he hissed when the zombie pressed against the large purple mark covering the entire back of his skull.

"I barely touched you!" he argued back, stepping away. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Jordan took a moment to stare at him. "Why do you care so much?"

"Cause you're my friend! And I'm gonna kill that crazy girl if she shows her face again!" Tom promised, swinging his pickaxe wildly in emphasis of his words. Jordan ducked as it whipped too close to his face for comfort.

"You're gonna kill _me_! Calm down, Tom, I'm fine." Jordan flashed him a smile. Then his eyes diverted past him and to the summit of the mountain, and his face took on a curious expression. "Hey, Tom?"

"What?"

"Does that look familiar to you?" Jordan raised his arm and pointed behind Tom. The other spun around on his heel and cocked his head sideways, then back, observing the mountain peaks as many ways he could think of.

"No." Tom concluded.

"Are you sure?" Jordan sounded slightly worried. Tom took another glancing look.

The mountains were strangely shaped, but he'd already noticed that. Nothing about the taller mountain now on his right, with its mushroom like shape casting huge shadows onto the land beneath it, or the smaller peak on the right with a box of colorful blocks sitting on top of it rang a bell...

Until something inside him struck a sour chord and he physically jolted. "Jordan..."

When he turned around with wide eyes, his friend was gone.

"Jor-dan!" he called, his voice cracking on the second syllable. Tom turned back to the peaks and saw his friend racing towards the summit. He rolled his eyes and took off after him.

The back of Jordan's head send stabs of uncomfortable pain down his spine with every footfall, but he was too focused on his goal to care at the moment.

He hadn't been thinking when he was running away from Star earlier, and he'd just let his feet take him far, far away from her. The turns he'd been making were nothing short of random at the time, but now that he's here, maybe they hadn't been.

Maybe something was bringing him here.

Jordan stopped in front of the front of the box at the top of the mountain, staring at the leaves in front of him. Faintly behind him, he heard Tom huffing and puffing his way up the path.

"Can you stop running away from me? I thought you loved me!" Tom whined, hands on his knees as he recovered. Jordan ignored him and started pulling at the leaves and vines.

"Jordan, I know you just hit your head, so maybe you're a little off. But you can't honestly be thinking that this," Tom waved his arm at the boxy shape his friend was pulling at, "is your-"

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I just gotta see." Jordan cut Tom off as he punched through that last bunch of leaves and ducked inside the box.

The air was much cooler, and the light seeping in from the glass to his right and the glowstone forming the wall in front of him illuminated the dust particles floating lazily in the air. The filtered light gave the empty inside of the structure a surreal quality, like Jordan was staring at an image that refused to let his eyes focus on it.

He took a few more steps and wiggled his nose as the dust tickled his nostrils. He rubbed at it vigorously to try and avoid sneezing. He didn't want to break the mesmerizing spell the shadows dancing on the ground was casting. As he watched, memories and long buried thoughts started bubbling up.

The shadows undulated and morphed and became the image of tree branches, full of leaves dancing gently in a breeze that didn't exist. He stared until his eyes burned but he couldn't look away. Then the dark images changed again, and one tendril shot forward towards him.

He yelped as his foot burst into painful pins and needles, and he jumped backwards and blinked hard, looking back at the sunlit floor. The shadows no longer moved, cast in harsh lines as the blocks in front of the glass blocked out the light.

Jordan heard footsteps and soon Tom was standing in the doorway, his face impossible to read due to the shadows cast on his face. "What happened?"

"My foot... I stubbed my toe on something," he lied smoothly, standing awkwardly with one foot braced against his hip as he tried to massage some feeling back into the appendage.

"What an idiot!" Tom teased, and Jordan managed a small smile. He flexed his toes and decided the needles could be ignored. He put his foot down and turned his back on the window. He was sleep-deprived, and the uncomfortable pain in his foot was just a coincidence. He'd been standing still too long and cut off a nerve. It had nothing to do with the dancing shadows. Jordan was just hallucinating, seeing things he wanted to see.

His friend ventured further from the door and looked to his left. "Have you gone downstairs yet?"

"There is a downstairs?" Jordan's heart sped up, and he stepped towards Tom.

"Ladies first!" Tom joked, shoving his friend. Jordan threw his arms out and braced against the tight walls around the stairwell, masking his gasp with a growl.

"How kind of you," he droned, taking the steps carefully. Though there may have been actual stairs here long ago, now there was nothing but cold obsidian. He shuddered as a chill ran down his spine. The cool air flowing up from the basement raised the hair on his arms and neck.

The stairwell twisted to the left about halfway down, and at this point he couldn't see two feet in front of his face. Blood rushed in his ears as his heart raced.

"Tom? You're coming, right?" His voice sounded loud, too loud, and he felt a burning urge to turn around and bolt back into the sunlight. Something was wrong. He hated it, he hated it here, but he also felt safe, and his feelings whirlpooled around inside of him until the twang of a loosed bowstring brought him back to reality, and he dove past the last step as an arrow buried itself in the wall behind where his head had been a moment before.

"Tom! Help!" Jordan shouted, rolling to the side as he heard the unseen creature nock another arrow. His brain went into primal mode as he came up on a crouch, swinging his leg out in a wide kick to sweep his attacker off their feet. The edge of his foot hooked around the other's ankle, he pulled it back and heard the rattle of bones as the attacker stumbled.

Skeleton! Jordan puffed out a sigh of relief. It was just a skeleton. He could fight that.

The man rolled again as the skeleton loosed another arrow in his direction, then kicked out again, this time higher. He glances off the side of its leg, doing no damage. He stumbled and landed hard on his back. Jordan scrambled to get back on his knees and looked up and the dim light coming from the stairwell now across the room from him highlighted the monster in front of him.

"Tom!" he called again, and its head swiveled and followed his movements with scary accuracy. It lifted its bow once more and drew back an arrow. The skeleton aimed, and released its arrow just as a shadow raced down the stairs and Tom loped the monster's head off with his pickaxe.

Adrenaline pumping and heart racing, he took Tom's outstretched hand and stood up on shaky legs.

"You ok? Here, lemme put a torch down." Tom told his friend, placing a lit torch in the beside them. Then, seeing how unstable his friend was, took Jordan by the shoulders and sat down, effectively bringing his friend down with him.

"Does your face hurt?" Jordan's hand flew to his face, bringing it away sticky with blood. Now that the heat of the moment had passed, he started to notice the burning pain in his right cheek. Jordan opened his mouth to reply that yes, his face did hurt, when Tom's face twisted into a shit-eating grin.

"Cause it's killing me!" Tom shrieked with laughter as Jordan glared harshly at him for a moment. He dabbed at the blood that was now dripping off his chin and wiped it on his friend's sleeve.

"Eww! Jordan!" He squealed, crab walking back towards the stairs. Jordan snickered.

"You asked."

"I did not ask for you to wipe your body fluids onto me!"

Jordan rolled his eyes, now using the edge of his sleeve to apply pressure onto the wound. He took a deep breath, then another, letting himself take in his surroundings.

The basement they were in was just as musty and dusty as the rest of the place, and the smell was even heavier. The torch Tom had placed illuminated the walls to his right, flickering yellow light bouncing across them.

"Tom, look." Jordan raised his free hand and pointed. Tom turned his head and furrowed his eyebrows. He stood up and investigated the line of chests along the walls.

"Nothing good. Just a bunch of random shit." Tom announced, hefting a dented iron sword out of one and sliding it across the floor to Jordan. "There, you won't need me to save you next time."

Jordan deigned not to respond, attaching the sword onto his hip for easy access. Tom took out a couple more iron tools that had seen better days and stowed them away.

"Should we be stealing those?"

"Nobody's been in here for years, Jordan. I think we'll be ok," Tom smirked, hands on his hips as he showed off the leather chestplate he'd found. "How do I look?"

"Like a noob."

Tom gasped dramatically, miming being stabbed in the chest. "You've wounded me! I think I might die!"

Then his eyes shifted, and he stood up tall again, joking demeanor gone. He took steps towards Jordan, then past him. He seemed to shrink as he descends a few steps, staring at the slanted ceiling in awe.

"You were right," Tom muttered in disbelief. "You were fucking right, Jordan..."

"Huh?" But as Jordan took the torch and stood up, he realized what is was that Tom was so silenced by.

The signs on the top of the wide stairwell shouldn't be anything special. The words themselves weren't even aggressive, but they sent chills down both their spines.

"The Vault. No block breaking or placing."


	8. Home Sweet Home

For a long time after the two ventured past those signs into the dark area beyond, and even after they surfaced back into the quilted, ruined remains of the house, the only sound Tom was acutely aware of was the fall of Jordan's footsteps.

The man had a very unique way of walking, and that was how drastically his steps changed depending on his mood. When he was excited, the footfall was light and nearly impossible to hear. Terrified, and he literally dragged his heels.

And nervous, as he was now, Jordan walked hard on the heels of his feet. The steps shook the ground around him as his friend paced back and forth. His head was in his hand, pulling at his straggly hair and he continuously mumbled to himself.

"It's a coincidence. It's not possible. This isn't my house. It's not. There's no way." Tom watched as Jordan stopped pulled at his hair for a moment and turned his wild eyes to him. "Right?"

"Uh, yeah?"

Jordan's hands fell limp at his sides and he flopped down to sit on a block in the middle of the floor. He took in a breath, shaky and unsteady and unnerving for Tom to hear.

"I want to go home."

"And where is that?" Tom asked, laughing. "We've had a lot of those."

Jordan remained silent, eyes fixed on his shadow on the floor in front of him. The sunlight, fading slightly, cast his face into darkness.

"Jordan? I was joking. Jardon?" Tom got up and plopped back down next to Jordan, whining the nickname playfully. Jordan looked over at him with a withered glare but otherwise stayed silent.

Tom grabbed his friend's ankle and shook it forcefully. "Snap out of it, Sparkly-dick! So this world is a little crazier than the other ones we've been to." Jordan turned his head and raised an eyebrow at that. Tom rolled his eyes. "Ok, a lot fucking crazier. But whatever! There's no rules here! No crazy king who's gonna throw us out of town for not believing in Mianite. And dude, have you seen how many diamonds there are?" Tom's eyes glittered greedily.

Jordan stared at him, amazed. "Is that all you think about?" he asked softly. Tom blinked.

"I mean, diamonds are pretty cool, but that's not all I care about. I like iron and gold too."

He laughed breathily at Tom's shit eating grin. "You don't worry about anything." Jordan said enviously.

The zombie shrugged. "There's no reason to. So this house looks like your old place in Mianite. But it's not."

"How do you know?"

Tom rolled his eyes. "Well, don't you remember what we did to your house before we went to the End to save Ianite?"

Jordan took a moment to think, then a smile ghosted onto his lips. "You, Tucker and Sonja blew it up with those stupid cow wands."

"And there was like, three blocks left. And then you fuckers destroyed mine in revenge." Tom grinned. "See? This isn't your house. Never was. Maybe it was this dimension's version of you who built it, and we'll meet him and you two will battle it out to be the alpha Sparklez."

"That sounds like something you would do... Actually, it's exactly something you've done."

"And I won!"

Jordan rolled his eyes and shoved him away, planting his foot in the center of Tom's chest and pushing him to the ground. Tom barked with laughter and rolled back upright, punching his friend's shoulder playfully.

"Come on, let's get out of this stuffy place and explore more of the world!" Tom stood up and bounced on his heels as Jordan laboriously got up as well. Frustrated with how slow his friend's movements were, Tom pushed him from behind and Jordan stumbled forward towards the door.

The sun was hanging just above the horizon line, just beginning to set the sky on fire in brilliant oranges and reds. The light washed over the mismatched land and made it look more harmonious than normal, as every block glowed warmly. Jordan and Tom edged up to the steep end of the cliff to take in more of the breathtaking view.

"It's kinda... pretty." Tom mumbled, breaking the silence with a stray thought. Absently, Jordan nodded. "Fucking weird, but pretty."

"You had to ruin it." Jordan took in a deep breath, letting the air escape slowly through his nose. He picked at the flecks of dried blood on his face subconsciously, hissing when his fingernail caught a particularly tender part of the wound. "Ah, shit!"

Tom's head snapped sideways, relaxing slightly when he realized what had happened. "You good?"

Jordan held his palm to his face, pressing on the skin to dull the pain. "Yeah, I'm fine. Alright, let's go. Let's climb this mountain, we can bunker down somewhere inside once the sun sets completely."

The zombie raised an eyebrow. "But, we have a perfectly good house shape behind us! If we're planning on setting up camp already, why don't we just stay in there instead of climbing another mountain?"

Jordan's eyes went steely and he tensed his jaw. "I am not staying in that place. You can, if you're really going to complain." He turned on his heel and headed towards the mushroom-topped mountain.

"J-Jardon! I was kidding! Hold up!" Tom stuttered, running after his friend as he started climbing the natural stairs the mountainside formed.

A little ways up, the stairs started curving into the mountain, and back out the other side. A third of the way up the climb, Jordan leaned against the quilted wall and allowed Tom to catch up, huffing and puffing and not happy with being abandoned. He whined to Jordan about the "betrayal" for the middle third, and finally he closed his mouth and used his remaining oxygen for the last part of the climb.

They made a makeshift camp just below where the branches stuck out from the trunk, building walls against the outside until there was only a two by one doorway leading to the outside. They were silent in their work; Tom because he was still out of breath from the climb, and Jordan because he had too many half-finished thoughts in his head, none of which he could form into words.

He wasn't normally a strong believer in fate or destiny, but it seemed like there was no way they would have found the patchwork versions of his old house and Jerry's tree without some other force guiding him. So, following that logic, something wanted him to find them. Something wanted him to be reminded of home, with poor recreations that made him more sad than anything else.

What he had told Tom was true, though he would have preferred to keep it to himself. Jordan wanted to go home. He wasn't exactly sure where that was, though. He'd had so many homes; what was it that he was longing for? The house on the hill back in Mianite? His spector dimension in Ruxomar? Or perhaps the Fortress of Fury? Or was it something less tangible than a place?

He leaned against the doorway, staring out at the land they'd arrived in. No matter where home actually was for him, he was sure that this wouldn't be it. It felt too foreign, like someone had tried to recreate a world but forgot how the blocks were supposed to be placed. And beyond that, it was too quiet. He hadn't seen a single person after escaping from Star, and he had been running around for hours. Nothing like the bustling towns of Dagrun or Urulu, but also not like the tranquility that the land of Mianite had possessed, at least when he'd first arrived.

It was silent; barren, and dead, void of anything Jordan knew. There wasn't any life, barring the hostile monsters that permeates every dark corner and the animals Star had kept in her miniature paradise. After he'd fallen into the ground, the silence got even louder. It seeped into him, making his skin crawl. He wasn't normally averse to silence, but the void inside his head pushed away even his own thoughts, leaving nothing but emptiness and a faint uncomfortable tingle.

Mulling over it, Jordan felt an uncharacteristic thrill of excitement at the idea of exploring this new world Sure, it wasn't home - it never would be - but this would be a fun adventure.

"Jordan!" He spun around at Tom's shout, blankly looking at him. Tom rolled his eyes. "Glad to see you're back from dreamland. I called your name five million times!"

"You're exaggerating." Jordan told him as he sat down near Tom, facing away from the door.

"Whatever. What were you thinking about?"

"Ah, nothing." Jordan didn't meet his friend's eyes, fixating instead on the hem of his shirt that he decided needed straightening.

Tom didn't find his answer too convincing. He narrowed his eyes. "Don't try to hide things from me, boy. You're a terrible liar."

The other man looked up. "What was that?"

"Don't change the subject!"

Jordan raised his arm and pointed at Tom. "No, there is was again! Tom, what's up with your voice?"

He unconsciously put a hand to his throat. "What do you mean?" He was sure this was a ploy by Jordan to get him to forget about Jordan's daydreaming, but he sounded so genuinely concerned that he decided to humor his friend.

"It's... I don't know. It' like your voice was coming from behind a wall, or playing from a recording. It was you, but it's not."

He rolled his eyes. "Nice try, Jordan. That doesn't even make sense."

Jordan stared at him, biting his lip. "And now it's back to normal... Tom, you're sure you don't feel sick or something?"

Tom stood up and brushed off his pants, placing another torch next to the entrance they had made before he filled it with spruce planks. "I'm not, but you are. Go to sleep."

"I'm not tired."

The zombie rolled his eyes and placed down a bed he'd made from the extra planks and some wool he'd picked up while digging Jordan and himself out of their hole. And when Jordan didn't make a move towards it, Tom walked up behind his friend, took a firm hold of his collar and lifted him like a sack of potatoes, throwing him ungraciously sideways onto the bed.

"What the- how the hell?!" Jordan spluttered, sucking in a breath when he saw the furious look on Tom's face.

"Shut up. Close your eyes and pretend to sleep, and keep that mouth closed." His voice was harsh, scratchy, and when Jordan propped himself up on his elbow, he could have sworn Tom's eyes were glowing cherry red like hot coals.

Then he refocused, and they went back to their normal void black color.

"Maybe I do need some sleep..." he admitted softly, slipping under the blanket and resting his head on the pillow. He slid his eyes closed, not expecting to be able to sleep no matter what he tried, but within moments he felt his consciousness slip away and his breathing deepened.

Tom let out the breath he realized he was holding. Apparently, getting angry at the stubborn man was the only way to win a fight.

He plopped himself down in front of what would be the door and set to taking inventory, and repairing what he could. His diamond pickaxe served him well, but already he could see the wear and tear on the connection between the head and handle. He needed a real weapon, but judging from the quilted land, there wasn't anything like the powerful metals and alloys they had had access to in Ruxomar.

Although, it wouldn't exactly be hard to get good gear, especially with the diamonds he'd stolen from Star. They weren't actually stolen, he knew, but it made him feel better to think he'd taken them away from her against her will. Tom glanced at the crafting table he'd stupidly placed across the room and decided he was too comfortable to get up and make gear from it tonight.

He decided that by the end of the next day, both he and Jordan would have full diamond gear. He smirked. They'd be decked out and Tucker'll be running around with a wooden pickaxe again.

Face falling into a neutral expression, he tugged off the leather chestplate he'd looted from the replica of Jordan's old house. It wasn't in the best shape either - none of the gear he'd gotten from those chests was new. Lots of small scratches, and one big gash that had cut deep almost all the way through from the left shoulder to right hip.

The stuff he'd found were most likely spares for emergencies, he surmised. Just like when Jordan would put away gear in his basement for easy access during purges.

Tom grinned to himself. Purges in this world would be exciting. So many resources just laying around, and with the amount of mobs that spawn during the night, he'd be able to have level 30 enchants on every piece of armor and weapon he wanted.

Laying aside the chestplate, he picked up the worn iron sword and started doing what he could to repair some of the damage. He heard a zombie groan loudly right behind him, and he jumped. Then he stole a glance at the bed to make sure Jordan didn't see him get scared by something so small. Well, he wasn't _scared,_ of course, just startled.

He straightened out his shoulders and went back to his task, ignoring that nagging embarrassment at the back of his mind. The zombie kept moaning and groaning but he soon tuned it out.

Tom's head began dipping and jerking back up as he fought off sleep. He really should stay awake, this was a new unfamiliar world that didn't have very friendly inhabitants, but he was just so tired...

When he finally did topple over, the pickaxe he'd been repairing slipped out of his hand and his head landed on the battered chestplate. He curled up in his sleep and dreamed of happy days and a world where they lived free of problems.


	9. A World Not Unlike Their Own

" _Sonj!" She heard her boyfriend shout in terror, and an explosion echoed out of where he disappeared._

Her feet tore up clumps of wet clay as she bolted towards the mountain.

"Tucker!" Sonja cried, heart racing out of her chest. Her body ignored the warning bells in her mind that were ringing and rushed to the point where Tucker had disappeared into the cliffside.

As she came closer, she heard the moans of several zombies echoing from further in and her eyes finally recognized a two by one tunnel entrance that her boyfriend had somehow spotted from the bottom of the hill.

"Tucker?" she called into the mountain, with no response. Tears of relief sprung into her eyes when she heard shuffling footsteps coming from the interior of the tunnel. "Tucker! You're alright!" She took a step into the tunnel, intending to grab her boyfriend and pull him into the light to make sure he wasn't hurt. She reached out and took hold of his arm, pulling him forward. He was strangely resistant to it, though, and when Sonja had searing pain pierce her forearm, she pulled away in terror.

The zombie that was responsible came with her, and she screamed more in surprise than fear or pain. Sonja lashed out and punched the zombie in the face, knocking it loose from her arm which hung loosely at her side. It stumbled back, but thoughtlessly ventured towards her into the sunlight. Its skin lit on fire, the smell of burning flesh stinging her nostrils. Faintly she heard footsteps running up behind her and the dull glint of a stone sword swinging through the air as Wag decapitated the monster with one clean swipe. The corpse exploded into dust and experience orbs, which crept towards Sonja and reinvigorated her with their little burst of energy.

A hand appeared on Sonja's shoulder. "Are you alright?" Martha asked her. She nodded, taking a moment to catch her breath. Wag ventured into the tunnel cautiously, disappearing from their view for too many heart pounding moments before he reemerged. He had a hand wrapped around Tucker's wrist.

Sonja rushed up to Tucker, gently easing him out of the tunnel and pulling him away from Wag. His head hung low, the brim of his hat hiding his eyes. His chest rose and fell with frightening speed and he was unsuccessfully trying to hide it. She positioned herself between Tucker and the curious probing eyes of her other companions

"Tucker?" Sonja whispered, grabbing him under the arms when her boyfriend's legs collapsed from underneath him. "Tucker, you're alright. It's alright. You're safe."

"What happened?" Martha had come up from behind, her eyes shining with worry. Sonja waved her away dismissively, not taking her eyes off of Tucker.

"He's fine. Can you go with Wag and grab some coal and wood and light up that tunnel? Tucker, can she have your pick?"

Slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the half used wooden pickaxe he'd made the day before. Sonja eased it out of his tight grip and held it out behind her. The tool was taken and she heard footsteps retreating. She didn't know if Martha was going to actually mine what she had been told to; the woman had a habit of avoiding hard work sometimes, especially physical work. But she didn't care; all that mattered was the man in front of her.

"Tucker, please, just breathe, alright? You're fine. Nothing is going to hurt you. Deep breaths." Sonja soothed, taking his hand when he reached out to her. After a near continuous stream of comforting words, his chest finally started to gain a stronger, more controlled rhythm and he wiped at his eyes before looking up thankfully at his girlfriend.

"Thank you, Sonj."

She smiled. "Of course. Do you mind telling me what happened?" She asked cautiously. Tucker bit his lip and took in a shaky breath.

"I thought that the mountain looked really familiar, so when I saw that tunnel, I just ran in. But... it was dark, so I didn't see, but... a-a creeper was right in the room past the door, and I hit the wall and passed out and, oh god," Tucker trailed off as he started tearing up again. He ducked his head again and wiped at his eyes with the backs of his gloves but Sonja took his arm and made him meet her eyes.

"Tucker. You are safe. Ok?"

"I know, I know, I just... Gods, why am I crying?!" His voice cracked and he buried his face completely in his knees. Sonja rubbed his leg, shushing him.

"It's alright. You have every right to be scared. I understand. Do you want to leave here? I'll get Wag and Martha and we can leave." When Tucker nodded, she stood up and brushed the dirt off her knees, shuffling to the entrance to the mountain tunnel.

"Wag! Martha! Come on out! We're leaving!" Her voice echoed back to her in an uncanny way, sending a chill down her spine.

"Sonja, come in here!"

"Yeah, and bring Tucker! This is something you two'll wanna see!"

Sonja rolled her eyes. Of course nobody listened to her the first time. "Tucker is not going back in there! Now come on! We're leaving you guys behind!"

Her friends didn't respond, and she shook her head. Sonja turned to look at Tucker sitting against the cliffside. He didn't look good, but he did have a grin on his face, which made this whole thing slightly more worth it. The woman turned on her heel and started back towards him, but Wag's voice rang out from the exit again.

"Sonja, help us carry this stuff! There's tons of great shit in here!"

"Diamonds and bows and arrows and potions!" Martha added, excited.

Tucker looked up at that, and the glint in his eyes clearly outweighed any fear he had been harboring. He got unsteadily to his feet and, grabbing her hand on the way past, pulled them both back into the now well lit tunnel.

Sonja wasn't normally claustrophobic, but being in a one by two tunnel with another person pulling her along wasn't what she'd consider comfortable. They took a tight turn and saw their friends strapping on various pieces of armor in a room at the end of the tunnel.

As they entered and descended the blocky stairs, Wag kicked over a near new iron chestplate to Sonja's feet. She picked it up and examined it as Tucker seemingly completely forgot his fear and started picking through the chests and cold furnaces along the wall. He threw each item behind him as he decided its usefulness so that the good pile stagnated, and the bad pile grew to his height.

Sonja grabbed more iron armor pieces and suited up, allowing the others to sort out what they would take with them and what junk they could leave, and scanned the room. The torch in the center of the room cast elongated, flickering shadows of her friends on the walls, and the outline of arched doorways on both the left and right.

She swiped a couple of torches and began lighting up the room that was to the left of the foyer.

There wasn't anything special in the room. It was nearly empty, just a box inside the dusty base with one corner slightly raised with a pillar in the middle. The pillar split halfway up, flowing from red wool on the ceiling to fence posts to stone slabs on the ground.

The sight suddenly reminded her again of her and Tucker's old base, and she felt a surge of longing for the times in Mianite, a carefree and happy point in their lives. They had gone on picnics and walks along the beach and actually felt like a couple. She had felt like she was in love. Even when they'd been fighting to the death against Dianite, Furia and his other minions, they had been done together.

And now...

Sonja sighed and shook those thoughts out of her head. No need to dwell on the past when they could and would have that again. The woman scouted the perimeter of the room, finding a break in the wall that lead to a steep drop that Sonja couldn't see the bottom of.

She was in the middle of considering a method to rappel down when Martha's voice behind her nearly startled her off the edge.

"Sonja? We're ready now, come take some stuff and we can get going like you wanted."

The woman agreed, steadying her heartbeat as she joined them back in the first room. Her eyes widened at the sheer amount of stuff the other three had managed to find. Tucker was happily swinging around an enchanted diamond sword that, while it had a little wear and tear, was clearly still very deadly to one on the receiving end.

The task of sorting items - which Sonja accepted as they were passed to her - seemed to have done well in calming Tucker down, and he looked to have completely forgotten his panic. The grin on his face as he jokingly wielded his weapon against Wag both calmed her and irritated her. She found it very hard to believe he bounced back that quickly considering previous attacks had taken him hours or even half a day to recover his breathing.

Then he looked over at her and smiled, and her heart melted. She sauntered over to him and captured his smug smirk in a kiss, effectively igniting a small fire in both their chests. She broke it after a moment, smirking at his slightly dazed eyes.

"I, uh... Ready to go?" He asked, sheathing his sword with a dopey grin on his face.

Sonja nodded, but on a glance back at Wag and Martha, she noticed a small entrance to another room that she had missed earlier, obscured by the strange shadows the torches cast.

"Actually, maybe we should just explore this base, and camp here for the night. If there's this kind of stuff in the main room, who knows what might be hiding further in, right?"

"Did you find anything that way?" Wag questioned, pointing to the lit room Sonja had stood in. She shook her head.

"No, but think about it. We never keep our good stuff just out in the open. There's gotta be something in here." She said with conviction, and Tucker nodded, albeit uneasily.

Wag shrugged and the group split in two. Martha and the wizard went through the larger tunnel to their right, while Sonja went to examine the tunnel she'd found, which turned out to be a short set of stairs. She moved to enter but paused, glancing back at Tucker who had a tight grip on his new weapon.

"You gonna be alright?" His eyes darted around, not meeting hers. He took a breath and steeled his nerves, nodding his assent. As she forged upward, she dispelled as many shadows as she could with what was probably an excess of torches.

Sonja reached the top of the staircase and placed a torch on the ground. Her eyes flicked over the small room in front of her, and opened her mouth to invite Tucker forward, lowering her iron sword.

She heard a telltale _twang_ and pain bloomed in her shoulder. She cried out and dropped her weapon, stumbling against the wall as her legs gave out on her.

"Sonja!" the woman heard her boyfriend call, his footsteps pounding on the block stairs as he raced to her rescue.

Tucker had lingered a distance behind Sonja, enough where she would be able to completely light the way for him while still being close to give support if necessary.

Which is exactly what he did when he heard his girlfriend cry out in pain, forgetting his fears for a moment and pounding up the stairs into the dark room above.

He ran headfirst into a wall of darkness, blinking to try and rapidly adjust to the sudden lack of light. All Tucker heard was his heartbeat, the blood rushing around in his head and Sonja's whimpers as she tried and failed to get up and remove the arrow in her shoulder.

"I've got you, Sonj, just chill for a second." He bluffed, his voice much steadier than his heart. By now his eyes had made out a monster's form in the darkness, and he pressed forward, diving into a clunky roll as it pulled its arm back and let another arrow loose, slamming into the wall behind him.

His roll took him further than he expected, and he slammed into the wall behind the skeleton. He awkwardly untangled his limbs and swiped at the mob blindly. A satisfying _chink_ rewarded him, and the monster crumpled to dust as its torso separated from its legs.

Tucker sucked in a breath, adrenaline making his limbs feel like jelly. He wobbled over to Sonja, who was pressing her palm against the wound in her shoulder now that the arrow had burst into a cloud of smoke with the death of the skeleton.

"Are you ok?" he asked, kneeling beside her both to comfort her and to not let her know how badly he was shaking. Sonja nodded, hissing as she lifted her hand from the wound, oozing drops of blood but otherwise starting to heal. She grabbed a torch from the pile she'd dropped during the attack and handed it to him, telling him to place it and light up the room.

He does, and they sighed in relief as the light bounced off the walls of the relatively small room. No more monsters hiding in the shadows. Tucker helped Sonja to her feet, careful not to pull too hard in case he irritated her shoulder.

"Are you sure you want to stay the night here?" He questioned, eyes flicking back and forth over the walls, and more specifically the paintings covering all three walls.

Sonja nodded, keeping her hand over her hurt shoulder. "Yeah, I'm sure." She smiled at him. "Tucker, I know you're scared, but this is the safest place we're going to find before the sun goes down. And I don't really want to camp out in a tiny hole if I don't have to."

"I'm not scared!" Tucker insisted. Sonja rolled her eyes.

"Ok, sure." She ventured towards one of the paintings, a detailed image of a white winged angel standing at the edge of a dark pit with fire deep below.

Tucker stood back to back with her, examining the painting on the opposite wall.

It was much bigger than either of the others, and the majority of the canvas was taken up by a bright white skull surrounded in flames. The vibrancy of the painting that must have been there for years stunned him. It looked like it had just been painted yesterday.

"You think the guy who lived here was an art fan?"

Sonja ran her fingers along the edge of the canvas. "Maybe. Or he was the artist. These are all so beautiful..."

They turned to get a look at the final painting. It depicted a set of scales, huge scales sitting against a backdrop of black star-speckled sky. On each plate of the scale stood a person: one was clad in all white with golden tendrils swirling around them, while the other was dressed in all black, with a dark red aura.

Tucker shuddered. Something about the painting, with its vivid details and uncanny resemblance to memories of Mianite sent a bolt of lightning racing through him, and without warning he spun on his heel and put his back to the art, pulling Sonja out of the room and back down the stairs.

"Oww! Tucker, what the hell?" his girlfriend screeched, slapping his arm away when they stumbled into the foyer.

"That room was giving me the creeps. Sonj, that painting looks like the Scales!"

"So the painter had a really lucky guess on what that would look like. That is no reason to yank my arm off! Ow!" she cried, holding said shoulder to punctuate her point.

"Sorry!"

They glared at each other for a tense moment, then a dainty cough alerted them both to the other half of their group standing to the side.

"Did we interrupt something?" Wag asked.

"No!" the couple told him simultaneously.

They raised a collective eyebrow, but didn't comment. "We heard someone scream, are you two ok? Did you find something?" Martha eyed Sonja's shoulder, and the other woman shrugged carefully.

"Just a skeleton, and a tiny room with some paintings." Tucker hefted his diamond sword and examined it, trying to appear nonchalant. Sonja glared at him like he was crazy, then turned the question back at them.

Wag stayed quiet as Martha described the side room, which was actually a horse stable. At least, that's what she assumed since the horses themselves were long gone. Her clue was the chest in the room, full of saddles and various armor. "I can't imagine the poor things got out much, though. The room is so small, not much more than a tunnel really, it's unlikely they even had room to breathe! Poor horse ownership, really."

Tucker opened his mouth to make some quip, how would Martha know anything about proper horse care or what the old owners of this base's life was actually like, but closed it as a thought occurred to him. Back in Mianite, his and Sonja's horses didn't exactly have all the room in the world, and they had hardly taken them out of the base for a ride.

He decided not to say anything, and just let Martha talk.

"I'd like to give them a piece of my mind, cooping up free-spirited animals like that. Steve's farm was bad enough, but at least he spent his time with them..." She trailed off and her eyes grew misty.

The rest of the group awkwardly avoided looking directly at the mystic as she bit her lip and tried desperately to hold back her sadness and tears.

It was a loud yawn that broke the silence that had fallen, as Wag stretched his arms high above his head, his right one landing nicely on Martha's shoulders and pulling her in for a one-armed hug.

"If we're gonna stay the night here, let's actually make the beds and sleep, yeah? I'm exhausted from plundering."

Tension dispersed, Sonja smiled and pointed over her shoulder. "There's some wool in there.

Half an hour and four beds later, the two couples were cuddled up and the men started snoring as soon as their heads hit the pillow. The girls laid awake for a while in the dimly lit room, breathing deep and hovering just on the edge of consciousness.

Sonja didn't think she would be able to sleep, half-wanting to stay up to make sure nothing else would come for her and her boyfriend, that he could actually get a good sleep here when he was clearly not happy to stay.

But the other half of her disagreed, and her eyes slid shut without her permission and she slipped closer to sleep.

Sonja wasn't sure how close she was when Martha spoke, but she did know that she wasn't happy to not be sleeping now.

"Sonja? Are you awake?"

She simply groaned as a response.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I'll be quiet."

Her heartfelt apology made it hard to stay mad. Sonja sighed.

"I'm awake now. What is it?"

Shuffling noises, and Martha's voice was clearer.

"Are you comfortable here?"

Sonja considered the soft pillow under her head and her warm boyfriend pressed against her back, with an arm slung protectively over her waist. Even though she was still kinda angry at him for hurting her shoulder more, she hummed blissfully. "This bed is pretty damn comfortable, yeah." Her eyes slid closed.

Martha huffed through her nose. "That's not quite what I meant. I mean, are you comfortable in this world?"

Sonja opened her eyes to the dim room again, slightly annoyed at being kept from sleep. "I don't know what that means."

"Do you feel... safe? Secure?"

"We stayed the night with a girl who turned out to be ok with murdering people for their loyalty to a god. I think that speaks to the relative safety of this world."

Martha sighed in frustration. "I mean... oh, forget it. Nevermind."

"...Alright. Night, Martha."

"Goodnight, Sonja."


	10. A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Jordan knew he was dreaming from the moment he opened his eyes and found himself laying on the top of a grassy hill, sunlight streaming with a gentle breeze ruffling the grass and flowers surrounding him.

He sat up, running his hand over the plush grass he'd been napping on. It was extremely soft, the blades knitted together to make a mattress fit for a king. He inspected a budding poppy near his hip, watching in amazement as it bloomed from his touch. A smile crossed his face; this world was so peaceful, a brief respite from the crazy world he would eventually wake up to.

Jordan heard snuffling, and looked over his shoulder to find a family of cows calmly grazing, three adults and a curious calf that caught sight of him and scampered over without fear. He laughed as it nuzzled up to him, curling its tiny body against his tucked legs and nudging his arm, prompting the man to pet it.

Happily, he obliged and found its content lowing almost as cute as little Epsilon had been in Sonja's lap.

He didn't know how long he sat there, rubbing the calf's head until it fell asleep at his side and a curious mother ambled over and gave him a stern eye, warning him to take care of her child, before giving him a huge kiss with a slobbery tongue.

Wiping that away with his sleeve, he slowly removed himself from the calf and stood up. Jordan took in a deep breath of the fresh air and observed all that he could see.

The dream world was beautiful, plain and simple. Ponds and rivers glittered as the sunlight hit the rippling water, tall grass and colorful flowers dotted the landscape, and in the far distance, a picturesque house sitting amidst landscape.

Leaving the family of cows behind, he picked his way down the gentle hill. He took his time, stopping to watch some birds pick at the ground in search of food, or brush his hands over a patch of flowers and seeing them bloom larger than he'd ever seen. Jordan wanted to go to the house, but he felt no rush. Time was slow in this place, meandering along just as he was. He could spend eternity in this paradise, the sun warming his face and the grass tickling his bare feet.

As he approached the house, Jordan realized it was much larger than he had initially thought. It was practically a palace, with spires scraping the sky and a two story high arched doorway with a intricately carved dark oak door.

Awestruck, his feet carried him to the door, knocking on it and wincing at the loud echo that emanated from inside. Hopefully the owner of this mansion would be amicable to visitors.

The lock clicked, and the door slid open without a sound. Nobody greeted him, but as he took a hesitant step inside he heard a faint melody reverberating from somewhere further into the mansion.

"Hello?" Jordan called, deciding to explore when nobody made themselves known. He gasped as he looked up and saw the ceiling three stories above his head, covered in beautiful murals. He walked along the edge of the room, craning his neck to get the best view. The pictorial images seemed to be telling a story of some kind, with clear figures interacting in the art, but he couldn't understand what any of it meant. There was a being made out of black and white clay, one of blue, green and yellow, and one of gray, white and gold. From there a being of bright green, who seemed to wither and die within the story.

As the murals wrapped around the other side of the room and he rubbed his neck, one figure in the pictures caught his attention, and he could have sworn the music he'd been hearing swelled and the sound became brighter as he recognized the being.

She was pictured more gorgeous than he thought was possible, radiating ethereal beauty even from the 2D art. His goddess was cloaked in purple and silver with a crown of gold, holding her scales in one hand and a bow in the other. In front of her stood two other beings, one red and black and one white and gold, but she took all of his attention.

The song grew louder, and he tore his eyes away from the murals without looking at the remaining ones. Nothing could top the beauty of Ianite, so why bother?

Instead, he walked to the nearest doorway, heading up a flight of stairs and stepping into a plush sitting room, decorated to his tastes with a wall of glass giving him a view of the garden a story below. The bright sunlight shimmered off the trees and flowers below, tempting him to break the glass and jump into the bushes, sure that they would catch him when he fell.

Jordan shook his head. Where did that thought come from? Even if this was a dream, nothing about the leafy greens below would be enough to keep him from breaking his knees. He backed off, opening another door that lead to another room, larger than the first but in the same theme.

The third and fourth rooms he entered were largely the same, minus the windows as he ventured further into the mansion. He found a kitchen at one point, cabinets stuffed to the brim with food and a batch of warm, freshly baked cookies sitting out on the counter. The smell alone made him swoon, and one bite warmed him to the tips of his fingers and toes and he unintentionally let out a moan of contentment. They were that good.

Swiping a handful of cookies, he continued his exploration, wandering aimlessly until he began hearing the singing again, closer than it had been before. Jordan shoved another cookie into his mouth and followed the song.

It was a woman singing, and as it got louder he continued straining his ears to understand the words until he realized that she wasn't singing in English. No, the continuous stream of song sounded much more like the chants he would use when performing witchery rituals in Ruxomar, or the whisperings of World Historian. A language lost to humans, with only fragments surviving in the form of magic.

But the singer he was hearing had no trouble with the language, strings of syllables rolling off her tongue like a rushing waterfall, mesmerizing him with her song and compelling him to find her, even if it meant searching the whole mansion.

"Miss? I'm friendly!" He spoke slowly, tiptoeing into another room and seeing a flicker of movement on the other side as someone ducked into the next room. "Wait, please! I'm not going to hurt you!" he promised as he ran after the long haired stranger.

Jordan kept up as long as he could, but the mysterious singer was always just out of his reach, catching only a lock of hair or a flash of purple clothing as she played tag with him inside the huge mansion. If he had been awake, he would have long run out of breath and lost her, but in this dream world his body had infinite amounts of stamina as he kept after her.

Finally, he came into a room that seemingly had no way out of it. No doors or open doorways in sight, but no person either. He cursed under his breath as he considered the real possibility that he had been chasing an illusion, created by his own desire to share this wonderful world with another person. Disappointed, Jordan turned around and went to leave the room when he heard the slightest noise. He stopped, straining his ears to see if it was just another figment of his imagination.

But no, as soon as he stopped he heard it again, just the smallest noise, so faint it was hardly there. A stifled sniffle, coming from the corner of the room, behind a bookshelf.

Jordan took a deep breath. So she was real. He closed the door behind him, not out of malice but only out of curiosity. He didn't want the stranger to run away again.

"Please, I'm not going to hurt you. I only heard your beautiful singing and wanted to meet you. Won't you come out?" He pleaded, running his fingers through his hair when she gave no answer.

"My name is Jordan, but my friends sometimes call me Sparklez. You can call me either, I don't mind."

"Sp-Sparklez..." the woman said, her voice incredibly soft. It filled him with a warm feeling, that lovely voice, fearful though it may be.

"That's right. So, since you know my name, may I know yours?"

"... No."

Jordan's shoulders slumped. She sounded so sure about that, her decisiveness crushed him more than he expected. "But, why not?"

"You're... it. You're not Sparklez."

"Wha... yes I am!" He shouted, immediately regretting it as he heard a tiny yelp and shuffling, as if the woman was trying to make herself disappear into the wall. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell. But I promise, I am Sparklez. Or CaptainSparklez. Or Sparkley-dick, Sparkley-pants, Glitter-lap... really, you can pick. I've been called them all."

Perhaps despite herself, the woman laughed, and Jordan caught just the slightest glimpse of purple hair flicker out from behind her hiding place. He smiled.

"Please, won't you come out? I don't have any weapons."

She went silent, and Jordan took her non response as a no. Sighing, he flopped down on the couch behind him and started munching on one of his cookies, crushed from his chase but otherwise delicious.. "Mmm, these cookies are really good. Will you join me in enjoying them?"

"Don't eat those!" the woman yelled, abandoning her hiding place and rushing out fully into his sight. And that sight dropped his jaw and his cookie, both of which hit the floor.

"My... lady...?" Jordan's eyes widened and filled with tears as he took in the woman in front of him. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. More than she had been the first time he'd seen her, more than she had been when they had spent time together in Ruxomar, more than the day he lost her to the void.

Ianite's hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back like a gentle river, covering her otherwise bare shoulders. Her dress accented her body perfectly, giving her a figure that was calculated yet effortless. Gold bands were wrapped around her biceps and up from her ankles, and the goddess's hair was held by a golden circlet, set with a flawless amethyst the perfect color to draw attention to her eyes.

And her eyes. As Jordan met them, he was lost in memories of both the world of Mianite and the world of Ruxomar. Happy memories, spending time together and going on lunch dates at the wizard's village. Beholding her for the very first time, when she was nothing more than a mirage appearing in front of him. And of course, the moment that he finally saw her in her true form, physically standing in front of him. After they defeated Dianite, and after they reluctantly killed Captain Capsize. He had taken one look and fell in love all over again. Not any kind of romantic love, no. But the undying love for her as his goddess. The willingness to do anything she asked, the belief that she could do nothing bad, that she would bring balance to a world that teetered on the edge of a knife.

And in that love, in that devotion filled state where his mind perhaps wasn't too clear, he did the only thing that came to him.

He held out his fistful of crushed cookie, offering her the least damaged one. "Want one?"

Jordan expected her to refuse. He expected her to take it. He expected her to stand there, silent. But what he didn't expect was for her to bring her hand down on his, knocking the gooey cookies out of his grip and scattering the crumbs all over the carpet.

He blinked, swallowing his half chewed bite and looking at his hand in disbelief. "Why... did you do that?"

Ianite stepped directly in front of him and grabbed him roughly by the shoulders. "Sparklez, please, you can't eat that! You can't eat anything from this place! In fact, you shouldn't be here at all! Jordan, I beg you, leave this place and never come back! I've been trapped, but if you wake up now you can escape! If you ever find yourself in this monster infested world again, I want you to run away, run as far away from this house as you can. Do you understand me?"

Jordan stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "My lady, what are you talking about? There are no monsters here. Come with me, I'll show you!" He tried to stand up, but his goddess kept him tightly pressed against the couch.

"No! Sparklez, you have to understand, it is not safe here! I have tried to escape so many times, but there is no way to leave!"

"My lady, please, I think you're a little off from running through this house. The world outside is beautiful! The sun is shining, and there was a cute family of cows where I woke up. My lady, I have missed you so much, if I find myself in this place again, I can't not come back and see you! You don't understand... I've missed you... so much."

Ianite's eyes filled with tears, and she lifted one hand off his shoulder to caress his cheek. "I know, my champion. It has been a long time, but until I can find a way to leave here, I cannot see you. If you get stuck here with me... I could not live with myself."

Jordan's lip quivered, and he averted his eyes and stared to the side. "My lady..."

"I can send you away, yes... and you can still escape. You ate, but if you do not come back, it will wear off... Sparklez, give me your word that you will not come back to this place!"

"My lady, I can't-"

"Promise me!"

His eyes filled with tears, and he lowered his head. His hand floated up, taking hers and intertwining their fingers. "I... I..."

"I promise."

Ianite smiled, brushing away her own tears. "Good. Now... go."

And when Jordan raised his head to meet Ianite's eyes, she was gone, and he was left with only an invisible hand in his, and a heavy stone in his heart as he fell into darkness.

"...dan. Jordan!"

The man sat up straight in his bed, clothes and sheets drenched in sweat and cheeks stained with tears. Beside him, Tom reeled back to avoid a collision.

"You alright, Sparklez?" he asked, black eyes filled with concern. Jordan shook his head, breath hitching.

"No, I... had a bad dream. I mean, it was good at first. I was in paradise. The world was perfect. But when I went into the mansion, I found Ianite..." He bit his quivering lip, trying to steady his voice enough to continue.

"Wait, you saw Ianite? How could that be a bad thing, if she's alive?" Tom immediately clamped his mouth shut in horror as Jordan sniffed and tilted his head back to hold another round of tears at bay. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that! I just meant, you know, if she's alive in this world, then that's a good thing, right? Jordan, please, don't cry!

Jordan took a deep, shuddery breath and pulled himself together, wiping away his tears and tossing his tangled bedclothes to the side. He went to stand up, and realized something was holding him. Or rather, someone.

"Tom, why are you holding my hand?"

The zombie man looked down at their intertwined hands. "You were reaching out and calling for someone. I grabbed it and you calmed down. What, do you not like me holding your hand?" He teased, waggling his eyebrows, a grin breaking out as Jordan smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "Aww, c'mon Jardon, I thought we were together forever! #Team Syndisparklez!"

Jordan rolled his eyes, pulling his hand from his friend and rolling away, ending up in a pile on the floor as he misjudged the size of the bed.

Tom burst out laughing as Jordan scrambled out of the awkward position, brushing off the dirt on his clothes and straightening his collar, trying to salvage some dignity. Yet, the contagious bubbly laughter broke him and he started giggling as well.

"So, Mr. Sparkley Dick, what's the plan for today?"

Jordan raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you ask for a plan?"

"Since you made me climb this mountain and sleep with a stupid zombie groaning right outside the door, that's when! You made us come up here so it better be worth it!" Tom whined, only half teasing. Jordan shrugged, pulling his jacket on properly.

"Oh. Well, I thought we could get a good view from up here. Then, we, I don't know, find something interesting and go from there."

Tom stared at him from his position on the floor. "That's it?"

"Uh, yeah, that's it."

"Ok, then let's go!" Tom sprang to his feet, punching out the wool he'd placed in the doorframe and ran out into the light with a whoop, and Jordan heard several mobs meet their end.

As he gathered the items Tom had left in the room, he realized that somehow, his dream that had had him in hysterical tears didn't seem as bad now. After all, it was just a dream. That was why nothing Ianite had said made sense.

And as much as he wanted to keep his promise to his goddess, even a dream version of her, he couldn't help but pray to dream of that paradise world the next night.

With those thoughts in mind, he squared his shoulders and followed Tom up the tree, basking in the warm sunlight and ready to face the day.


	11. A New Balance

Tom squinted as he broke out onto the top of the mushroom shaped mountain into the glaring sun. He blinked hard a couple times and shielded his eyes with his hand, running over to the edge to get a full view of the land below. After a minute he heard his friend's footsteps approaching from behind, and he took a precautionary step back.

"I miss my sunglasses." Jordan complained, both hands cupped around his eyes. Tom heard him gasp as he turned his attention to the horizon. "Woah..."

"Do you think this is natural? Or did someone take the time to really reorganize literally every block in existence into this random ass pattern?"

Jordan tilted his head and pursed his lips. "If it were someone doing that, they really need to get a different hobby. But, you know... I don't think it's random."

Tom glanced to the side. "Of course it is."

"No, cause look," Jordan pointed with his left hand down at the ground, "there's a thing of diamond blocks down there, right? And right next to it is pink wool. And then over there, you can see the same pattern. I think there's some kind of system to it."

Tom stared at the diamond patch Jordan had pointed to, but he didn't see what his friend did. "Nah, it's totally random.

"Tom-"

"Nah, nah, nah, Jordan, it's totally random!"

Jordan rolled his eyes and smiled, going back to scanning the horizon. "So, that mountain looks really weird, over there."

"They all look really weird."

"Yeah, I know! I was just suggesting a possible place to explore."

Tom pointed to the right of the smooth mountain Jordan had pointed out. "What about that? Do you see that over there, the grid looking thing?"

He squinted in the direction his friend gestured to and nodded. "Yeah, that's kinda weird too."

"Everything is weird. Let's go get a closer look!" Tom bounded away from the edge, back into the staircase.

"Hold up!"

Tom and Jordan made it down the stairs much faster than they had made it up them, and they started towards the grid Tom has pointed out at a brisk jog pace. Tom shared some of the food he'd swiped from Star's base, and they ran in comfortable silence, side by side.

They followed the path. Tom found it very obvious after Jordan actually pointed it out to him, and he chastised himself for missing it. It was a two block wide flat path with barriers on either side, splitting off leading to other areas. The two followed it up a medium sized hill and came up on the grid structure he had spotted.

It was four buildings, arranged in a square formation and built in a low valley in the ground. Tom slid down the sand on the side of the valley and broke into one of the buildings after not seeing a door, slaying a stray zombie and looking around. The shadows cast by the ceiling didn't hide the fact that the building was nothing more than an empty shell.

"There's nothing in here, Jordan!" He called to his friend, leaving the one and breaking into the opposite one. He sighed as he found the same result in the next one, and the following one after that. An empty one room structure, with not a chest or piece of loot in sight. Sure, he dug out some diamond and iron blocks he found within the grid, but even that wasn't enough to warrant their running over.

"Nothing in any of them, huh? Tom, come on up here." Jordan called, back up at the crest of the valley. Tom climbed up after him and followed as Jordan lead him into another closed off area, this one without a roof.

The new place was pretty small, but oddly shaped. There was a clear strip to walk in, and on either side were one or two high mounds of various blocks. And all around it, a surrounding border floating a few blocks above their heads, supported by pillars on the four corners of the rectangular area.

"What do you think this is? Some kind of ritual setup?" Jordan examined the entrance for any signs of use. Tom meanwhile decided to parkour to the top and he sat down on the border, swinging his legs and nibbling on a pork chop.

"I don't know if that kind of stuff even exists in this world. I haven't seen anything that you could use for witchery or magic around, have you?"

Jordan shook his head, putting his hands on his hips. "No, but I mean, what else could it be? The buildings down there could hold monsters or animals, and they would bring them up here to be sacrificed."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "That's morbid."

"Yeah, but it's possible!"

"Ok, sure. Doesn't really matter what it was, though. Clearly it's been abandoned for a long time." Tom had stood up, running back and forth on the border now, sliding along the small patch of ice in it with glee. "So Jardon, what do you think was wrong with that girl?"

Jordan turned around and stared up at him, eyes moving back and forth as his friend bounced around. "What do you mean?" He unconsciously rubbed the back of his neck, wincing as he brushed a tender spot.

Tom attempted a cartwheel and missed his footing, crashing to the ground. "Ah!"

The older man crossed his arms and grinned.

"I mean, you think Ianite did something bad to her? Liked, killed her whole family bad?" Jordan's eyes widened.

"What? Ianite would never do that!" he retorted defensively. The zombie man got to his feet and rolled his neck.

"Maybe not in the worlds we've been in, but Jordan, it's kinda her turn, right?"

"What is that supposed to mean?!"

Tom brushed off his sleeves and started monkeying his way up to the top of the border again. "Well, in Mianite, Dianite was the one we ended up fighting. And in Ruxomar, it was Mianite. So it would make sense for this world to fight Ianite, right?"

Jordan opened his mouth to reply, to argue for his goddess, that she would never become something that they would end up needing to fight, but then he closed it and thought for a moment.

While he didn't really believe that because this was the third world with the gods that they'd visited, Ianite had to be the bad guy for the reason that she hadn't been yet, he did have to admit that it did complete the cycle. But even so, he didn't want to admit to himself that he would need to fight against his goddess this time. Ianite, the angelic ethereal being that he had saved in Mianite and lost in Ruxomar, the guardian of a balance as delicate as she was.

"Uh, Jordan? Dude, what is _with_ you? You are so out of it!" While Jordan had been daydreaming, Tom had jumped down from his running around and stood in front of him, standing as tall as he could with fists on his hips, staring at him.

"Sorry... I was just... thinking. I don't think you're right, though. How could Ianite ever be the bad guy? She's the balance of good and evil, right? So you would think, in the other worlds where the balance was lost, she'd be bad. But she wasn't! So, she's gotta be good in this world too. So she wouldn't do something like murder a family."

Tom took a step back, slightly intimidated by the intensity of his friend's defense of his goddess. "Ok, ok, jeez. It was just a thought!"

Jordan took a breath and turned away, leaving the area before Tom could see how much the thought of fighting Ianite really affected him.

"She definitely killed one of her wolves, though."

"Drop it, Tom!"

Waking up, Wag felt better than he had for as long as he could remember. He was in a soft, comfy bed curled up with a blanket and a warm body beside him. He didn't wake up from a loud owl right outside his window, he didn't have to spring out of bed from him having to put out a fire from a rogue spell he'd casted in his sleep. And most of all, he didn't wake up in a cold sweat from a dream that mostly eluded his memory, leaving only feelings of anger, loneliness and loss. No, all he felt this morning was a strong urge to make a move he'd been holding back on for a while.

The wizard pulled Martha closer to him and kissed the back of her head, reveling in the softness of her light purple hair and grinning when she hummed adorably in her sleep.

He loved this woman. As strange as the circumstances were surrounding their relationship, and her reservations that he would respect should she not want to be with him, he loved her with all his heart.

Probably the first time it had happened, and frankly it terrified him as much as it excited him.

Martha squirmed in his arms, and he allowed her room to move as she twisted around and brought them face to face. Her sleepy eyes and smile melted his head and riding the high of his feelings, he dipped down and pecked a quick kiss on her pretty little lips.

The mystic blinked, and her cheeks burned red as she ducked her head to hide her face in his chest. Wag chuckled, a low sound resounding in his throat, and hugged her.

"Love you, Martha."

"Love you too," came the embarrassed squeak.

An hour later, the fantastic foursome was all out of bed and packed up, gear strapped on to their armor and weapons ready at their sides, should any insane teenagers decide to greet them.

The group left the safety of the base and squinted at the strong sunlight that blinded them.

Wag took a deep breath and put his hands on his hips, looking around at the quilted land before them. "So... where to?"

Sonja piped up. "Me and Tucker decided we have to join up with Jordan and Tom, and then we need to find Andor, Mot and Dianite. They would have landed in the same world, right?"

"Tucker and I." Martha corrected. Sonja rolled her eyes.

"Whatever."

Wag shrugged. "I mean, maybe? But they disappeared almost as soon as we jumped, and Andor flew into the void. They could be in a completely different world entirely."

"Well, we have to _try_ and find them. I really never thought I'd be relying on Dianite, but he might be the only god we can trust in this world, if that girl is anything to go by." Tucker pointed out, looking around at the others. Martha giggled softly.

"My uncle is anything but trustworthy, but I have to agree with you."

"You two are actually gonna be Team Dianite?" Wag raised his eyebrows as the group started walking.

"We're not gonna be Team Dianite, I don't think. More like, we'll align with his morals and work with him, if only because we trust him the most out of the gods in this world. After all, Mianite must be a crazy son of a bitch if that girl acted that way, and who knows what Ianite's like. Dianite is probably our best bet, right?"

Sonja nodded, agreeing with Tucker's explanation. "Tucker and I have both always been on the morally right side, not so much on Mianite's team itself."

"But you sure took to my uncle's plan rather quick once you realized my brother was spewing nonsense about him." Martha accused, glaring daggers at Tucker. "Not to mention being very eager to murder innocent children to go along with his plans."

"That was to try and bring Ianite back, and you know it! Don't make me the bad guy!" Tucker's voice echoed against the mountainside and sounded much louder than he intended.

"Let's not point fingers and start fighting, ok? That's in the past now." Wag tried to pacify his friends, with a little success. Tucker crossed his arms and picked up his pace, leaving the group behind as he sulked.

Sonja glared at Martha, who sneered back. Wag focused his attention on preventing a catfight, and so he didn't notice when Tucker turned the corner at the base of the mountain and disappeared into a tight valley between two mountain peaks, filled with blocks mimicking the shape of trees.

Tucker didn't take long to admire the strange view, ducking around the pseudo trunks and began climbing up a small flight of stairs out of the forest.

A shadow darted out from the corner of his vision, and he only had a second to react before his assailant brought a glinting diamond sword down on his head. Tucker tried to react, unsheathing his own weapon, but he couldn't raise his arm before a clash rang harshly off his helmet and he dropped to the ground like a rock.


	12. Into The Unknown

The clash of Tucker's attacker against his helmet rang out from the valley, finally alerting the wizard and the girls that he had disappeared from their group. Without words they all drew their weapons and sprinted to the source of the noise, Sonja pulling ahead of the other two as her feet pounded against the ground.

She whipped around the corner and dodged through what she could only assume to be pillars of some kind, reaching Tucker. The woman's hood fell back as she raised her weapon against the person standing over her boyfriend's prone body. A harsh scream rang out from her as she brought her sword down, grabbing the other person's attention as they spun around and brought up their own weapon to block just in time. Sonja, having put nearly all her weight into her swing, was pushed towards the other's face by the inertia of the blow. She took one look, and her jaw dropped.

"Tom?"

"Sonja!"

They unlocked their weapons and stepped back from each other. Sonja looked from the zombie man to her boyfriend on the ground with a dented helmet. "What the fuck, Tom?!"

"Hey, I didn't know it was Tucker! I thought it was that girl again! I thought I'd knock her out before she found Jordan again!"

Two pairs of running footsteps snapped his eyes back to the treeline where Wag and Martha came into view, both halting as they took in the scene.

"Sonja, are you alright? What happened?" Martha asked, eyeing Tucker lying on the ground and Tom's gleaming enchanted sword.

"This idiot decided to attack my boyfriend, that's what."

"I didn't know it was him!" Tom protested.

Everyone sheathed their weapons as their nerves steadied. Sonja took a knee beside Tucker, inspecting the sizable dent in his armor and checking his pulse and breathing, releasing a breath of relief when they were both normal. She gently shook his shoulder, trying to bring him back to consciousness. "Wait, so where's Jordan?"

Tucker sucked in a breath through his nose and his eyes blinked open, drawing Sonja's attention to him. His eyes were hazy as he stared up at Sonja. "What..."

"Tom was an idiot. Are you alright?" Sonja said as way of explanation, taking her boyfriend's hand and wrapping her free arm around his back as he tried to sit up. "Steady, Tucker."

He tilted his head up to look at Tom, his face the very picture of disdain. "You're an asshole."

"Glad I didn't hit you too hard." The zombie man offered a hand, and Tucker smacked it away in favor of standing on his own, slowly as he regained his balance.

Tom gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. "Anyways, Jordan's back there. He's very interested in the wall, for some reason." He rolled his eyes with a grin. "He's convinced that we're back in Mianite or something."

The others all stopped and looked at him. "What?"

He shrugged. "When I finally found him and we explored, we found a house that looks a lot like his old one did. It was next to a huge tree mountain and everything. But I told him it's impossible - we all destroyed that house with our cow wands before we went to save Ianite."

"Tom, that doesn't mean we can't have landed in Mianite. I mean, now that I think about it..." Tucker trailed off, then shook his head. "Nevermind."

"Were you going to say the place we stayed in last night was like our old base?" Sonja asked.

"So you thought so too? I thought I was just going crazy!"

Wag shook his head. "But like Tom said, that doesn't make sense. We completely revamped your base, remember? It didn't look anything like that when you left."

"See?" Tom held his hand palm up, wrist bent, gesturing towards the wizard. "We can't be in Mianite. Besides all that, I think we would remember if the ground looked like this!" He pointed to the blocks he was standing on, where spruce wood and nether quartz ore came together.

"Are you sure, Tom?" a voice said from behind him. He whipped around and met eyes with Jordan, who looked serious. Then the older man looked past the zombie and his face lit up. "Guys! There you are!"

"Jordan!" Sonja cried out happily, rushing towards him and crushing him in a bear hug. "I'm so glad you're alright. You scared us, running away like that! Don't do that again!"

He rolled his eyes, unable to hide his wide smile. "Yes mother."

Once Sonja let go he was wrapped in the much gentler embrace of Martha, and he smiled at her when they parted. "I'm glad you guys are alright. After I left, I worried that... well, I thought that girl was going to hurt you guys. For being with me. So I'm glad you got away." He smiled sheepishly as he cut off his rambling, rubbing that back of his neck.

Tucker shrugged, blinking hard to clear a few stars from his eyes. "She didn't put up much of a fight, honestly. Didn't seem like she wanted to hurt us."

"She even healed Martha, after she fell and hurt her nose!" Wag added, glancing over at the mystic. "How's it feel, by the way?"

The purple haired woman smiled gently, prodding her nose with her hand. "Doesn't even feel sore. That potion she had really is some kind of miracle cure."

Jordan's eyes widened. "She didn't try to hurt you? At all?"

"I mean, she seemed ready to impale Tucker if he kept yelling at her, but unfortunately that didn't happen." Tom snickered,

"Shut the hell up Tom."

"Did you manage to figure out why she doesn't like Ianite?"

Sonja shook her head. "We didn't really want to stick around her after she went nuts." Jordan's shoulders slumped, even though he completely understood.

"So..." Tom drawled, tapping the point of his sword against the ground impatiently. "What now?"

"We need to find the others. Now that the six of us are together, we should find someplace to make our bases and start looking for Dianite, Mot and Andor."

Tom perked up at his god's name. "Then let's go!"

He turned around and ran past Jordan, back the way they had come. Quickly his friends grabbed their stuff and followed after him, letting Tom lead the way since none of the others had a better idea.

The heroes ran for a long time, zigzagging back and forth as different landmarks caught their attention and they investigated. First they found a mountain like structure that looked suspiciously like a castle. The interior proved to be just as disjointed as the outside, and the lack of loot drove them away quickly.

After a good few hours of exploring, the group plopped down on a patch of grass and ate lunch, joking around with each other like they normally did. Even though the world was unlike anything the well travelled adventurers had ever seen, this at least was familiar.

Despite the laughter ringing in the air, both Tom and Jordan felt themselves on edge, both because of what they had seen while unconscious.

Tom knew the dream could not be real. It was all an elaborate fabrication of his guilt ridden mind, but that didn't make it easier to bear. Even now, two nights later, he could remember every word that dream Dianite had said to him. Every nerve in his body was set on fire when he recalled how the power surged through him, inhuman in its intensity. But Tom was pragmatic, and he was sure that the dream was only that - a dream.

Jordan, on the other hand, had convinced himself of the exact opposite. That the Ianite he had encountered in the utopian dream world was in fact the real one, and that brought on a dilemma he was now turning over in his head, smiling and nodding along with his friend's conversation absently.

Ianite had told him to never return, not until she was able to escape, whatever that meant. The man had decided that the goddess was probably experiencing hallucinations, trapped in a prison of her own design. Only a beautiful being like her could create a palace like that, and it was very in character for her to imprison herself. Ianite was so sensitive, and though that was a trait he loved about his goddess, it did cause her to blame herself for events beyond even her control. Could it be that she had trapped herself in that mansion because of something she did, and she was punishing herself for?

Jordan found it very likely. And so, if that was the case, he had to help her. He had to talk her out of it and bring her back to her senses. But he had no idea where she was in this world. Or even if she did exist on the physical plane. So that meant he would have to try and conjure up the perfect dream world again. And, once he managed to do that, he would have to find his goddess in the labyrinth of the palace, who was sure to be hiding again. And then he would be charged with the task of getting her to listen to him, and apologize for breaking his one promise to her and then make her see the illusion she herself had cast.

A daunting, near impossible task. But he plastered a smile on his face and followed his friends as they packed up and ventured further into uncharted land. If it was impossible, then he would just have to find a way to do the impossible.

As they ran, the land started to blend in. One set of mountains looked identical to the next, plains stretched on for miles and miles and they could only assume they were in some sort of forest biome when the quilted blocks rose from the ground in the form of oddly shaped structures that possibly resembled trees.

After hours of running on mostly flat ground, Sonja's mind began to wander. Where were they trying to go? If the land looked the same no matter they went, was there any reason they couldn't just plop down in any old area and call that home? In Mianite, she had fallen into the world a little after Tom and Tucker, so the general area was already plotted out. And in Ruxomar, they all built close to Dagrun, in case they were needed by the king. Some of them had even lived in the town for a time before the Taint destroyed it.

So now, there was an unspoken rule that they would all have houses in the same general area, even if they weren't their primary base of operations. But here, in this mismatched strange world, there was no pre existing town to build near, no easy place to set up shop. No friendly face to welcome them into the world and ease them into their new life before some inevitable problem occurs that requires 'the sky people' to solve.

If there was one thing Sonja knew she wouldn't miss, it would be that expectation that was unceremoniously thrown on their group's shoulders. Perhaps in this world, strange as it was, they could finally settle down and not have to rescue a god or defeat an eternal and all powerful being.

As she thought back to their arrival in Ruxomar, her eyes went wide and she spun around, walking backwards up a hill to address her friends. "Martha, I just thought of something!"

The mystic lifted her head to look up at Sonja, huffing and puffing. "Yeah?"

"You said that girl we met was familiar, right?"

Martha blinked. "Uh, her soul was, yes."

Sonja kept walking backwards as she crested the hill. "Well, do you think she could be the alt of-"

"Sonja look out!"

As Jordan called out a warning, she took another step back and was met with empty air. With a panicked scream she pitched backwards, reaching out towards her friends with fear stricken eyes.

"Sonj!"

Her eyes closed, heart pounding out of her chest as she waited for the ground to meet her. But instead, hands wrapped around each of her wrists and she hung from the ridge, pain blooming in her shoulder.

She sucked in a breath and suppressed a cry of pain as her friends pulled her back onto solid ground, and immediately collapsed in a pile when they let go of her. Tears pooled in her eyes and fell onto her cheeks as she cradled her injured shoulder, taking deep breaths to avoid passing out from the pain.

"Sonja are you ok?!" Martha dropped to her knees beside her injured friend, looking at her with concern but unsure of what she could do to help. Sonja tried to smile, though it turned into a wince.

"I... I will be." She closed her eyes and took another deep breath, opening her eyes as the pain faded to a dull ache. "What happened..." Her voice trailed off as she looked out at the drop she had almost fallen from.

The hill she had thought would slope gently downwards, like the dozen before it, actually broke off in a dizzyingly high drop that made their heads spin. Tom, always the daredevil, shuffled up to the edge and looked down, taking an instant step back. "That's... yeah, that's pretty high."

That was an understatement. The hill dropped as steep as a mountain, into a valley surrounded by equally tall mountains as the one they were standing on. Small hills filled in the space between mountains and all six of them had the same thought.

"Well guys..." Tucker spoke, helping Sonja to her feet and digging around in his pockets for some spare blocks. "I think we found our new place."

Martha breathed an audible sigh of relief, exhausted from their journey. The heroes grinned at each other as Tucker and Tom began building a rudimentary staircase down into the valley below.

Jordan laid a gentle hand on Sonja's arm. "I'm sorry for hurting you..."

She looked at him for a second, then realized what he was saying and shook her head. "Oh, my shoulder was hurt before this! Got shot by a skeleton. But I mean, even if you were the one to hurt it, I'll take an injured shoulder over falling to my death! So thanks for saving me."

"You're very welcome. I don't think Tucker could have done it on his own." He nudged her with his elbow, laughing with her as they descended down the staircase to follow their friends and start building their new life.

Once they reached the base of the valley, Tom grabbed Jordan by the arm and sprinted off with him, saying something about wanting to be the first to claim his mountain and wanting the one next to Jordan's. The older man rolled his eyes but went along, just as curious as the zombie man about this mountain range situated in this crater in the world.

Sonja started towards Tucker, intending to take his hand and go with him to find a suitable place to build their joint base, but a slender hand around her wrist stopped her. She turned around and met eyes with Martha.

"Sonja, what were you saying before? About Star's soul?"

The woman picked at her sweatshirt sleeve and thought about it for a moment. "Oh, I was going to say that maybe that girl is this world's Dec. But I mean, the only things they have in common is the god they follow and that she was the one to welcome us into this world."

Martha pursed her lips and held her chin, thinking. "It's a possibility... but Star's soul is very different than what I remember Declan's being like. Though, I am very new at recognizing the nuances between souls. The only two I've actually been able to compare next to each other are Mot and Tom."

They started walking together, following the others as they engaged in their conversation. "And for as many memories as I have of my father, I did not learn how to inspect people's souls until he had already been gone for a few years." Martha told Sonja.

Sonja tilted her head. "You know, I always found it a bit odd that Ianite immediately recognized Jordan when we met her in the end. I understand he's the alternate version of her husband, but he had been gone for ten years, right? _And_ he was how much younger than Spark?"

Martha shook her head. "Immortal beings like the mother and uncles experience time much differently than you or I do. To her, ten years is nothing more than a heartbeat." The purple-haired woman's eyes fixated on the ground. "She's been alive for millennia. Losing Spark for ten years would be just as fresh of a wound as losing Steve is for me."

Sonja bit her lip, slightly uncomfortable with the shift in conversation. Martha took a shaky breath and tilted her head back towards the sky.

"Oh, I'm so pathetic. I thought I could replace my mother and become the new guardian of balance in Ruxomar. But instead, I lost nearly everyone I cared about and abandoned the world entirely. Honestly, I'm surprised you five are still letting me follow you around." Sonja heard a sniff, and laid a tentative hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, come on, don't say stuff like that. I know you've lost a lot in a really short time, but you're not pathetic or, I don't know, cowardly for escaping a world that was crumbling beneath us. You wouldn't have been able to do anything if you hadn't come with us. But hey, think about this. Maybe you can train in this world, and we can find a way to rebuild Ruxomar from here."

Martha glanced at her with a watery smile, wiping at her eyes. "Yeah... maybe we can. Maybe Dianite has an idea of what we could do... once we find him of course."

Sonja studied Martha out of the corner of her eye. Her tears were mostly dried, though her eyes were slightly more moist than normal. Conjuring a smile onto her own face, she slung a comforting arm around the shorter woman's shoulders and pulled her in for a quick one-armed hug. "You worry so much. C'mon, we're young, we shouldn't be worrying about rebuilding worlds and filling the boots of our immortal parents!"

The purple-haired mystic giggled, a hand in front of her mouth. "I appreciate that sentiment, but I'm not _that_ young, Sonja."

"What, you're like 25? That's not that old, Martha." Sonja jokingly chastised, shaking her finger. Martha shook her head.

"I'm nearly 40, Sonja."

At that, she stopped and stared wide-eyed at her companion. "Wait, what? I thought you were around our age?!"

"I never said anything of the sort," Martha shrugged, crossing her arms. "But I understand your confusion. I inherited several... characteristics from my mother, one of which is slower aging. If I never ascend into godhood, I'll probably live a life about twice as long as a normal mortal like you will." Something about the way Martha said the word mortal struck a nerve with Sonja, but she pushed it down and forced a smile.

"Well hey, looking good!"

"Sonj! Come check this out!" Tucker's voice echoed from above them, halfway up the nearest mountainside. She started towards him, then stopped and looked back at Martha as the other woman called out to her.

"Sonja? Would you mind... keeping my age quiet? I already feel like an outsider within your group of friends, them knowing would just add another reason to the list I don't belong."

Sonja raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

"Uh, sure, but you should know that you're part of the group now." She smirked. "You're stuck with us, whether you like it or not!" Then she started up the mountain, leaving Martha behind with a small smile on her face.

Even with her injured shoulder, climbing the mountain was nothing. The cliffside formed natural staircases, and with a few blocks Tucker had placed on his way up she reached the summit with no trouble. She took his hand when it was offered and rested her head on his shoulder as they looked out over the valley together.

"So, I think we can build a small little house up on top of the mountain, make it look nice, maybe have a little pool, and then we can dig down and build out from there. It won't be hard to get resources, so I guess that's the one good thing about this weirdass world. I mean, if we wanted to, we could make a house completely out of diamond blocks!" Tucker laughed, turning to look at Sonja. "What do you think?"

She looked up at him and took in his excited smile and eyes shining, and her heart swelled with a wave of pure happiness as she pulled him down and threw her free arm around his neck, twisting her fingers into his hair as they met for a deep kiss.

Tucker, after a second of surprise, wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer, curving their bodies together as they melted into each other. Sonja sighed contently and they broke apart, resting their foreheads together as they gazed into each other's eyes.

"As long as we're together... I don't care." Sonja whispered, and Tucker grinned and pressed a kiss to her jaw.

"Diamond blocks it is then."

"Hey, lovebirds!"

They broke away from each other to look over at Tom, waving dramatically at them from the mountain straight across the valley from the one they were stood on. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted over at them. "Get a room! Nobody wants to see you two eating each other's faces!"

Tucker rolled his eyes and shouted back. "You're just jealous!"

Sonja giggled and leaned into Tucker's chest. This right here, the jokes and insults casually thrown around because they all knew it was in good fun, this was something they had been missing in Ruxomar. Sure, they were all still together most of the time, but more often than not they were all focused on their own thing. Blood magic, thaumaturgy, witchery, tinkering with their ME systems. Unintentionally, it kept them apart.

But now, they had back what they had lost when they left the world of Mianite. And if she could help it, Sonja would not let it go again.

"C'mon, Tucker, let's start gathering those diamonds. Our base isn't gonna build itself."

"Gods, I can't wait until we have the first Purge. I'm gonna kick Tom's ass!"

Follow my tumblr mianite-season-3 for updates on Unofficial Season 3 and dragonsaphirareads for my other projects and my silly rambles!


	13. The Purge

_Thank you guys so much for your support of this story and sticking with me through this hiatus. I will warn you now, it's not going to get any better for a while. If you wanna know where I am, you should definitely follow mianite-season-3 on tumblr to see what I'm up to and bug me about the next chapter._

Tom took a silent breath to steady his shaking nerves. He shifted a piece of armor that was digging into his side, wiping his sweaty palms on a piece of his shirt that was sticking out underneath his chestplate. The zombie man leaned his head out from behind the wall he was up against, trying to stay small and avoid drawing unwanted attention.

Distantly, he heard a clash of weapons and although he couldn't see anyone fighting, he was certain all of his enemies were locked in a three way fighting match. He had seen Sonja running in the general direction of the noises not long ago, and he and Jordan had an unofficial pact with each other. And surely, Tucker would be right by his girlfriend's side, fighting along with her.

Then, he heard a small _ting_ behind him and wasn't given any time to turn around before he was struck first along his side, then a straight shot right onto the back of his head. A harsh clang echoed along with a rather manly cry of pain as he collapsed to the ground onto his side. Tom groaned and looked up at his attacker, going cross eyed as he stared down the sword point nearly nicking his nose.

Smirking above him stood Tucker, looking all too smug about his sneak attack. Still holding his sword a bit too close to Tom's face for comfort, he held out his other hand to his friend expectantly.

"Paper, please." Tom growled but dug into his pockets and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, chucking it into Tucker's hands. He grinned and stuffed it into his pocket without regard for keeping it neat.

Tucker saluted to his friend and spun around, quickly disappearing behind the craggy mountainside. Tom huffed, clambering to his feet and jogging around the mountainside towards the center of the valley, hidden by the hills and mountains. He caught wind of a faint clash of metal on metal and assumed he would be seeing someone else at the Quartz House soon.

He approached the Quartz House, a rather impressive building made entirely of Quartz and pushed the door open, running over to Martha who was sat on a bench eating a loaf of bread. She lifted her head and looked at him with mirthful eyes. The mystic grabbed a sheet of paper and an ender pearl from a stack beside her and scribbled his name on it while he impatiently tapped his foot waiting for her.

"You're not on your game today, are you Tom?" she smirked, to which he huffed, swiping the paper and ender pearl out of her hands, turning his back to her as she giggled.

"Who's winning?" Tom asked, fingering the crumbled pieces of paper in his left pocket while he stuffed the new one in his right. Martha took a second to respond, rustling papers behind him.

"Tucker's in the lead with twelve. Sonja with ten, and Jordan with seven." Tom grumbled. He had eight. He really had to pick up the pace. He didn't even know why he was doing so terribly—he had been the one most excited for the Purge in the first place!

A creaky door slammed open and Sonja came in, hair tousled and flying away without a helmet, holding a broken wooden hilt and a sour look on her face. Martha took in her appearance and stood, kneeling to search through a chest beside her bench and came out with a dull wooden sword and a diamond helmet, handing both to the younger woman before grabbing another sheet of paper and an ender pearl.

"Jordan beat me again. Tom, control him. That's the fifth time this Purge. I don't remember him being that ruthless. That's your influence!" Sonja accused, only half joking through her exhaustion. Tom merely shrugged with a cheeky grin and pushed his way past her, out onto the stoop of the Quartz House before he chucked his ender pearl towards the mountain across from the entrance, seeing a diamond clad figure duck into a hole in the peak.

"I'm gonna get you, Tom!" he heard Sonja call before the air was sucked out of his lungs and he was thrust through space in an instant, appearing slightly higher than he had aimed with a ghostly pop. Tom stumbled and felt his knees jolt as he steadied himself, readying his sword once he got his balance.

"Yeah, you wish Sonj," Tom mumbled to himself, dropping down in front of the hole someone had disappeared into. He snuck in, trying to stay silent as he figured out where his opponent was, if he was still in the tunnel.

Then, as he was feeling around in the darkness with only a sliver of light remaining from the outside, he ran face first into a wall and recoiled too far back, landing solidly on his backside and staring up at the ceiling.

"Ow! Fuck," Tom groaned, taking his helmet off to rub at the sizable bump forming on his forehead.

"Tom? That you?" A voice hissed from the darkness somewhere above. Tom tilted his head back so far it hurt his neck, and he caught a flicker of movement, a reflection off an armored individual hovering above him.

"Jordan?" There was a loud clunk as the person leapt down and landed on the cave floor, looming over him. Tom shoved his helmet back on his head and scrambled to his feet. "Dude, Tucker's winning by like, a lot, we need to find him so we can get back our lead!"

Jordan nodded, creeping up to the entrance of the cave, squinting against the light. He rubbed his eyes and shaded his eyes as he glanced around the valley. He didn't see anyone climbing the mountainside, or at the summits, but as he watched he did see Martha exit the Quartz House and jog over to a small contraption beside it. A couple blocks of iron and noteblocks in the middle, Martha pulled a lever and sound rang out. Loud enough for even someone on the outskirts of the valley to hear.

"We've only got five minutes left! Shit, there's no way we're going to find Tucker in time," Tom swore, coming up behind his friend after hearing the siren.

"Nope, not a chance. Hey, how many papers do you have?"

Tom grinned sideways. "Eight. And so do you."

Jordan smirked. "Battle to the death?"

"Hell yeah."

Jordan narrowly dodged a sparta kick off the side of the mountain, jumping down onto a lower outcropping and nimbly making his way down the cliff. Tom shouted after him, clambering down in a chase after his friend as they found a more stable battlefield.

Once he had a solid footing on the ground at the base of the mountain, Jordan spun around and shoved Tom as he landed beside him, causing him to stumble. He ran after him, sword held tightly as he swung.

"I'm not gonna come in last!" Tom let out a battle cry and ran forward, blocking Jordan's strike and swinging wildly in return. The two traded blows for a while until Tom left his guard down at just the right moment, and Jordan slammed the hilt of his sword into his forehead then swept his legs from under him, holding the dull weapon against Tom's throat.

"I think you are. Now, paper, please..." Jordan held out his hand with a smug look on his face, then let his eyes drift upwards. He trailed off as he caught sight of a figure standing above them, looking down from a bluff. Her long hair fluttered softly in the quiet breeze, and when he met her eyes she smiled. He opened his mouth to call out to her.

"I'm not out yet!" Tom kicked Jordan's legs out from under him, rolling to avoid him as he fell heavily to the ground. Jordan flipped onto his back and crossed his eyes to look at the sword now posed to cut off his nose. "Come on, cough up the paper!"

"No, Tom, look!" Jordan leaned back to try and look up at the figure, but he couldn't get a good angle.

"Quit stalling! Paper! Now!" Tom demanded. Jordan hurriedly dug his paper out of his pocket, tearing it in the process and throwing the ripped half at his friend, ducking away from the sword and crawling to his feet. He vaguely heard Tom grumbling about it but he didn't care. He lifted his head sharply back towards the ledge.

Nobody there. Jordan's shoulders fell, as did his spirits. She had been right there... hadn't she?

"Uh, Jordan? Jardon!" A hand clapped him on the shoulder and he was yanked around to face his friend. Tom saw the look on his face and immediately dropped his volume. "What's the matter?"

"I...Ianite, she was just there!" Jordan pointed upwards, and Tom followed with his eyes and pursed his lips.

"Uh, there's nobody there, Jordan."

Jordan shrugged, staring at the ground dejectedly. Grimacing, the zombie man gently placed his hand on the small of Jordan's back and guided him in the direction of the Quartz House. "I think you hit your head when I knocked you down. Why don't you go take a break in the Quartz House? I'm gonna try and find one of the others before time's up!"

Before Jordan could say anything, Tom had already run off with a yell, calling for Tucker or Sonja to come out and fight him in one final battle.

The older man was reluctant to agree, but time was almost up for this Purge, and he had just lost all motivation to keep going, even if it meant he would lose. In a way, though, he felt it was an appropriate punishment—he hadn't called out for his goddess. His tongue had frozen and his voice disappeared. If he had only been able to force that one word out, then he could have kept her there. Catching her, keeping her grounded with just the pure energy that the name contained.

And she could explain everything, all the questions that were floating in the back of everyone's mind. Why was the land so messed up, unnatural in its chaotic organization? Why was it that they could not find Andor, or Mot, or even Dianite? Why did Star hate her, when he knew his lady was not capable of what the young girl claimed she had done?

One question haunted him above all, however—why wouldn't she answer his prayers? They had all tried praying to their gods and even to each others out of sheer desperation. Not once did they receive even a sign that they had heard.

But she had appeared. Silent and beautiful, just watching. He couldn't have imagined it, like Tom claimed. Jordan had seen her before he'd been knocked to the ground. Even with the knock to the head, he knew he hadn't hallucinated her. Her energy, her quintessence, it was so overwhelming yet almost nonexistent. Familiar yet so new. And so, so frustrating.

"Jordan! Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost," Martha exclaimed in concern as he walked into the Quartz House, putting a soft hand on his cheek and another on his forearm. He shrugged with a small smile.

"I might have," he replied, taking a seat on a bench and beginning to undo the straps of his armor. The mystic, though her curiosity was palpable, let him be for the moment. Looking at her clock, she made her way outside and rang the noteblock bell once more, a loud siren to let those in the valley know the Purge was officially over.

Soft footsteps and a cough invaded the silence that fell after the bell had rung, and Jordan looked up with eyebrows furrowed, glancing all around for whoever had made the noise. Off to his right a loud slam and Jordan sprang to his feet, grabbing the dull wooden sword he'd been using for the Purge to ward off the intruder.

The so-called "intruder" looked startled at the outburst, then he smirked as he ripped a chunk of bread from the loaf in his hands and took a bite. "Nice to see you too, Sparklez."

"Wag!" Jordan grinned, throwing the sword to the side and running up to the former wizard. "You're back! I thought you were gonna be gone for the Purge?"

He shrugged, rolling a piece of bread between his fingers before popping it into his mouth. "Yeah, well, things didn't go as planned. Just got back not too long ago, actually."

Jordan looked at him expectantly, feeling slightly discouraged by the somber look on his face. "With good news, I hope?"

His silence was a better answer than Wag would be able to say. Jordan heaved a deep sigh. "I think it's better I explain once everyone's back, so I only have to tell the story once," the wizard stated, moving and plopping down next to Jordan's abandoned armor pieces.

Knowing he would just have to wait, Jordan busied himself for the few minutes it took to get everyone together to grab his normal equipment and began strapping it on.

Tucker came back first, storming into the Quartz House missing a helmet and a boot, but with a wide smile on his face. Something told Jordan Tom had had that final battle he'd wanted, and it hadn't gone well.

"Oh, Wag, you're back!" Tucker panted, out of breath. His friend nodded, grinning slightly at his disheveled appearance. "Too bad you didn't get back a bit earlier."

The wizard shrugged, finishing off the loaf of bread. "We'll have another."

Tucker opened his mouth to ask Wag what he'd found on his trip, but Sonja and Tom bursting into the Quartz House took his attention away for a moment.

"You fucking suck." Tom pointed at Tucker with his sword, glaring hard. Tucker smirked back, waving his own weapon casually.

"You wanna go? I'll kick your ass again if you want," Tucker gloated. Tom took the bait, lunging forward and swatting the dull sword away, bringing them into a duel. The others, quickly getting out of the way of the crossfire, rolled their eyes. Then, as if in slow motion, they saw Tom bring his weapon back hard in a backswing just as Martha opened the door and stepped inside. A strong thwack was heard and everyone winced.

Martha dropped down in a crouch out of reflex, hand immediately going to the bump on her head that was already forming. Tom started apologizing, as did Tucker after a nudge from Jordan and Sonja, but she just hissed that they shouldn't fight in the Quartz House, and that each of them would be deducted points if it happened again.

The two shut up after that.

Martha, after affirmation from Wag that her head wasn't bleeding, went to sit down behind the table, tapping it. "Papers for the final count."

Everyone who'd been part of the Purge dug out crumpled, ripped papers from their pockets and told her their final totals - Tucker had 13, Sonja 10, Tom 9 and Jordan in last with 8.

"That point is rightfully mine and you know it, you sneak," Jordan accused, only half joking. Tom stuck his tongue out playfully.

"You let your guard down. Don't do that next time!"

Sonja raised an eyebrow. "Wait, I thought you two had a truce?"

Jordan shrugged. "We did."

Neither offered up further explanation—it wasn't exactly an isolated event. They were smart, they could figure it out.

"Alright, all the counts were correct. I'm pleased to announce that the first Purge winner of this new world is Tucker!" He pumped his fist excitedly.

"Hell yeah!"

"Second place is Sonja, third place is Tom, and last place is Jordan. Really lost your game at the end there, huh?" Martha asked sympathetically. Jordan sighed, nodding his head slightly.

Wag coughed, drawing attention to himself. "So, while the Purge results are very interesting, I'm afraid I've gotta bring the mood down."

All eyes now on him, he took a breath and glanced around at his friends. "As I'm sure you can guess, I didn't find anything out there. No animals. No trees. No crops. No gods. No Andor. No Mot. No Devisor Gaines. It's just a weird barren wasteland."

"So that means, no food..." Sonja slumped, looking over at the chest behind Martha where they all knew all they had was cooked fish and loaves of bread. They were all sick of it.

"Damn it, I'd literally kill for a steak or pork chop right now." Tom growled, crossing his arms.

"You'd need to." Everyone looked at Tucker confused. "You know, cause cow."

In response, Tom smacked him upside the head.

Ignoring the squabble they got into once again, Jordan stepped towards Wag. "We've got to go out further. There _has_ to be something out there. There just has to be."

"There _isn't_ , Jordan. We've gone on I don't even know how many scouting missions in the last few weeks. If we haven't found anything by now, I don't know if it exists. We all know this, but this world is weird. Animals may not spawn like normal. We know monsters don't." The four shuddered collectively, remembering the first night where they really hadn't lit the valley well enough. Mobs were covering every inch of land. They had just been lucky they'd had workable bases.

Jordan furrowed his brows. "But, we can't just give up! There has to be something! If we could just find _one_ tree, we could get some saplings, and apples. Or just one chicken! There has to be one!" His voice pitched up as he slide into hysterics for a moment. He then cleared his throat. Wag shook his head.

"You'd think we'd have run into something by now."

Martha cut into the debate before it could escalate. "Um, I did have an idea that I mentioned to Wag..."

The wizard's eyes widened. "Martha... I thought we decided we weren't gonna-"

"We don't have much of a choice! Eventually we're going to get so sick of bread and fish that we'd rather starve. If we can avoid that, I think we should at least discuss it!" Wag raised his arms in defeat, leaving the mystic to turn to the rest of the heroes. Tucker and Tom paused in their childish fight when they felt the mood in the room shift.

"So... it's not something you guys are going to like. But I really think it will be best for all of us, in the long run. Hopefully we'll be able to get food, find our other friends and figure out where the gods are all in one fell swoop."

"Well then spill it woman!" Tom urged, earning an elbow to the ribs.

Martha took a deep breath, blowing her bangs out of her face. "Now, keep an open mind, but I thought that we could go back to the place where we fell, and... ask Star for help."

She looked back and forth between her friends, taking in varied levels of shock and anger on their faces as they digested her words.

"Are you crazy?!" Tucker broke first, his voice cracking and not even caring. "That crazy girl would never want to help us! Plus, did you forget that she wants to KILL Jordan?!"

"Yeah, there's no way we'd go to that lunatic for help with anything! I'd rather keep eating fish and bread!" Tom added on, clapping a hand on Tucker's shoulder.

Sonja managed to keep her voice a bit calmer. "I... have to admit, I really didn't expect that. Martha, come on, surely that's not the only idea you came up with?"

The mystic shrugged helplessly. "All my other ideas went up in smoke as soon as I thought of them. Look, I know we didn't really part on the best of terms, but I just know she can help us! She's lived in this world much longer than us. She may know where the others are! Plus, she has food! Animals, crops, everything."

"Hello! She wants to KILL Jordan? That's kind of a big problem!" Tucker practically snarled. Martha steeled her nerves and looked him in the eyes.

"I'm very aware, thank you. Now, if you let me explain the full plan, without interruptions, that would be great." When nobody spoke out, she continued.

"We are looking for four people - Mot, Andor, Dianite, and Star. I'm positive that Mot and Dianite will be wandering the world together, so we need three search parties. Wag and I will search specifically for Andor. I've felt faint traces of his soul, I know I can follow them to him if I concentrate hard enough. Jordan and Tom will search for Mot and Dianite. Hopefully being a Dianitee will allow you some connection, and that will guide you in the right direction if you focus. Jordan, you're going to make sure he actually does focus. And finally, Sonja and Tucker."

"You're leaving us with crazy girl?" Tucker asked, eyes wide and fists balled.

Martha nods. "As... unpleasant as it may be, it's the smartest way to do things. She knows that you two are the only Mianite followers between all of us. Not to mention, after Jordan was gone, her demeanor completely changed. If you can just fake it long enough to get the information we need, any leads you can find, then you can sneak out with seeds and hopefully some eggs and leave during the night. Star is a huge asset we cannot ignore."

"More like huge asshole," Tucker grumbled.

"Not to mention," Martha said sternly, glaring at him. "You two could try and find out exactly why she feels so negatively about Ianite in the first place. And, if possible, convince her that she isn't actually a murderer. I have a feeling she has a very strong connection with the gods. Anything we can learn from her would help."

Sonja realized what Martha was insinuating. "You want us to become Mianite followers with her, don't you?"

"If you can do that, you can find a way to contact Mianite and from there, ask his help in finding the others. It really is for the best—"

"No fucking way." Tucker interrupted flatly. "I am not going to beg for help from that girl. Absolutely not."

"Tucker, please, if you would just consider it-"

"No."

They locked eyes for a long, tense silence. Then Martha sighed and looked away. "Fine. I can't force you to do anything. We'll have to make do with finding Dianite. If we split into two groups of three to look for the others, we should have enough food to last about a week each."

Sonja, who'd been picking at her nails in thought, looked up at that. "Wait, Martha, aren't we forgetting someone? Devisor Gaines is in this world too, right? Shouldn't we be looking for him too?"

Everyone else glanced at each other, and Tom said what everyone was thinking. "Do we really need to find him?"

Jordan pursed his lips and shook his head. "I don't think so. Gaines... I mean, did we ever care about each other? It always seemed like we were just working together for a time. Temporary allies."

"I agree. Besides, it was Gaines who programmed the portal, and he said himself that it would take him home. So, if we landed here, this must be his home world, right?" Martha added.

"Yeah! He's probably forgotten about us completely!" Tom stated, ending the discussion there. Sonja let it slide—like the others, she didn't care overly much for the Devisor. But she had wanted to bring it up, if only to make sure she wasn't alone in her thoughts on the man.

Wag yawned loudly, cupping a hand over his mouth. "Well, this was all fun, but I haven't slept properly in days, so I'm gonna just go home and sleep for 72 hours. Don't wake me unless there's an emergency." With that, the wizard left the Quartz House, heading back to his house. Martha quickly followed after, telling the heroes to meet back at the Quartz House the next day to gear up and head out on their respective search parties.

Tucker asked for his prize for winning the Purge, and with a sigh Martha told him she would enchant it that night and get it to him the next morning. Satisfied, they all split, going back to their bases to rest up and finish up building projects before they left to find people they weren't even sure they could find.


	14. Decisions

Hours later, Sonja and Tucker were diligently working on expanding their farm underneath their house. The entire group had been eating nothing but fish and bread since they'd run out of the food Star had provided them. Everyone was sick of it, but they did want to feed themselves, so everyone made sure they had enough.

The couple worked in silence, Tucker tilling soil while Sonja alternated between lighting the place and digging further into the mountain. It was a tense silence, but neither of them wanted to breach it. Until Tucker's stomach grumbled loudly, and Sonja finally opened her mouth as he started nibbling at a loaf of bread.

"You know, a steak would be a lot more filling than bread."

"Sonja..."

The woman shrugged. "I'm just saying. I could really go for a nice, juicy apple, personally. Or maybe lamb chops. Ooh, with some pumpkin pie to top it all off—"

"Alright, enough!" Tucker shouted, gripping his hoe tightly, putting notches into the handle with his nails. "Cut it out!"

"Cut what out? I'm just talking about food." Sonja faked innocence, intentionally not looking at her boyfriend and continuing to mine.

"Cut the shit. You're on Martha's side, Sonja? You're on crazy girl's side?!"

"I'm not on anybody's side!" She shot back. "I'm just sick of fish and bread, Tucker, and if Star can give us food, then I'm willing to work with her!"

"I can't believe this..." he growled, going back to tilling the soil with extra force. "How has everyone forgotten about what she did! She nearly killed Jordan—"

"After she completely healed him with a potion, gave all six of us a place to stay for the night and supplied us with stuff, and even after she attacked Jordan she offered Martha a potion to fix her nose."

"Are you defending her?"

"No! I just... aren't you curious about her? What would cause a person to act the way she did?"

Tucker stared at her, incredulous. "Are you?"

Sonja whirled on him then, looking him straight in the eyes. "Are you not? Think about it. What has gone on in that girl's life to make her so kind and accepting of complete strangers, and yet react so violently at the mere mention of Ianite's name? Why is she living alone with a bunch of wolves? C'mon, you can't say you aren't curious!"

"Maybe I am, but—"

Sonja rolled her eyes. "Besides, the two of us have been way too lucky in the past worlds we've been in. Our god has always been there for us, in some form or another."

"But we haven't been able to contact any of the gods here. Maybe they don't even exist in this world!" Tucker argued back, not looking up at her and continuing to farm. "And if they do, why should we focus on finding a girl we aren't even sure is going to help us, instead of actually looking for Mianite himself?"

The woman paused in her mining, her voice lowering. "Tucker... don't try to tell me you didn't feel it too. When Star got angry, and attacked Jordan. You felt him, right? Given that praying hasn't gotten us anywhere, I think you know as well as I do that Star might be our only chance at finding Mianite."

At that, Tucker fell silent, the sounds of farming quieting as he stood still.

"What are you afraid of?" Sonja's question was soft, not challenging Tucker, but instead prompting him to be honest with himself. He resented how well it worked, but tried to fight it.

"Star's going to kill us if we go back, Sonj," he tried to reason, but she just shook her head.

"No, she's not. She's looking for Mianite followers, and possibly friends. We can fill both of those roles. Martha's right - her only problem is with Jordan."

"She's going to wonder why we changed our minds and figure out what we're planning." He tried again, becoming a bit more desperate. Again, she shook her head and answered in the same calm tone as before.

"She knows nothing about us. We've both been double agents before. Faking it long enough to get food and information will not give her enough time to figure out anything if we play it right."

Tucker tried one last time. "She's not going to tell us anything! Or worse, she's not going to know anything at all!"

Sonja rolled her eyes. "We won't know until we try. That was a lame excuse and you know it."

He fell silent, and Sonja lowers her voice even more, shifting in an accusing tone he doesn't care for.

"What are you really afraid of? Yes, she's powerful and slightly unpredictable, but I think it's because of that that making friends with her can only be a good thing. She has food, information, power, and might be our only hope to figure out anything in this world. What reason could we possibly have to deny that?"

"She's _evil,_ Sonja! A ruthless person who would attack anyone just because they don't follow the same god as her! It's not that deep!"

Sonja narrowed her eyes. "Like King Helgrind? Like Lieutenant Al?"

"Yes!" Tucker nodded enthusiastically, glad she was finally understanding.

"Like you?"

His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to argue back, but she held up a confident hand and it was enough to make him pause.

"Maybe you didn't kill anyone. But you helped the King purge his city of anyone he disagreed with, based solely on the god they worshipped. Steve, Andor, Tom, Jordan. You sided with him."

"Tom had it coming!"

Sonja tilted her head. "Did he?"

Tucker waved his hands to emphasize his point. "He destroyed things! He blew up the jail!"

"Are all Dianitees like that, Tucker?"

He paused, licking his lips and wondering where that came from. "Well, no, I guess not. Steve was pretty cool, and Mot is completely opposite from Tom."

Sonja's gaze was steady, boring into Tucker. "But if you only knew Tom, and had nobody else to compare him to, how do you think you would describe Dianitees? What would you think of them?"

"Um, destructive? And unruly, and dirty cheaters, and chaotic and schemers and..." Tucker trailed off.

"Evil?" The one word, a question from Sonja, and he stopped what he was doing completely, staring solemnly at the ground. "I think that's really what you're afraid of, Tucker. That what we learn from Star isn't going to let you hate her anymore. That, whatever her reasons are for hating Ianite, whether true or not, are valid and you can't just write her off as crazy anymore. You're afraid that she's not the monster you think she is."

Tucker's shoulders dropped and he opened his mouth to argue against her. That no, he wasn't afraid of that, Sonja was wrong, Star really is a danger to them, but all the words died on his tongue and he just felt defeated.

Sonja made her way over to her boyfriend, her voice gaining warmth as she spoke. "This world doesn't seem very well inhabited. We know that. There probably aren't that many followers of the gods. But all it takes is one." Sonja sighed and puts her pickaxe away, placing a gentle hand on Tucker's slumped shoulder. "I understand why you don't want to go. I really do. But... I really don't think Star is lashing out just out of malice. I feel... sorry for her. I just want to let her know that Ianite isn't the killer she thinks she is."

"What if she is?" Tucker's head jolted up, and he gained new frantic momentum. "What if this world's Ianite is cruel, and evil, and a killer, and everything Star thinks she is?" His eyes were wide, sure that his girlfriend wouldn't be able to counter that.

To his disappointment, she didn't take the bait, and instead shrugged casually.

"Well, then I guess you'd get to say I told you so. But you'll never get that chance if we don't go." She patted his shoulder, then gave him a peck on the cheek. "Just sleep on it, alright? Think about it, and if you really don't want to go, then we'll figure out something else, ok?"

He licked his lips and nodded, grabbing her wrist as she turned away looking her in the eyes. "Are we... alright? Not mad?"

Her lips widened in a soft smile, and this time she pressed a kiss onto his lips. "Not mad. But tired. I'm going to bed. You coming?"

He looked down at the tool in his hands, then back at her and shook his head. "No, I think I'll stay and work a bit. I've... got thinking to do."

Sonja gently caressed his cheek before heading upstairs, and the ghost of her hand remained there as he tried to sort through the thoughts she had just thrown into turmoil.

"I'm not going."

Tucker told Sonja the next morning. When she looked back at him, she could see the determination in his eyes and she knew there was no way she could convince him now.

"Tucker, come on..." She pleaded, giving him sad eyes. He shook his head forcefully.

"No. I am not going to risk my life on the chance that a teenage girl is somehow going to have all the answers we need."

She sighed. "Fine. Then don't."

He looked up at her, eyes lightening and a smile returning to his face. "I'm glad you've come to your senses. Honestly I was worried you weren't gonna-"

"You made your choice, Tucker. But I get to make mine. And I'm going back to see Star."

Sonja matched his tone, and met his shocked face evenly. "You weren't the only one who had to do some thinking last night. And I decided that even if I needed to do it alone, I was going to go talk to Star. There's too much that we could possibly learn to not give it a try."

"Sonja, what if she kills you?! You can't just risk your life like that!"

She doesn't blink. "I absolutely can, and I will. And you can stay here or come with me, but it's not going to change my mind." Sonja then turned around and started suiting up.

While she didn't really believe that Star would attack her, it did not hurt to be armed and protected when she approached, on the off chance that her assessment of the teen was completely off the mark. If she was attacked, she had not just Star to worry about, but her pack of wolves as well. Not to mention the obscene amount of mobs that would spawn during the night.

"How are you gonna find your way back?"

The question came out of nowhere and she tilted her head back to look at him.

"Um, I'll just go back the way we came. It was pretty much a straight shot, wasn't it?"

Tucker raised his eyebrows. "I dunno, was it?"

Sonja rolled her eyes, but was also upset that he managed to pick up on the one worry that was still bugging her. How would she find her way back? There weren't any specific landmarks within this land. All the mountains look the same and flat land was just a mess of color.

"I'll find my way back. I can take care of myself."

That was that, and neither of them said another word to each other as they suited up and headed out to the Quartz House to meet up with their friends.

Martha wasn't pleased to hear the solution Tucker and Sonja had come to, but she didn't spend too much energy arguing with either of them. It was clear that they wouldn't be swayed from their decision, and it benefited everyone to have at least one person stay behind in case the people they were looking for found them instead.

"So then Wag and I will search for Andor, Jordan and Tom will search for Dianite and Mot, and Sonja will go speak with Star while Tucker stays here. Each search party will take enough food to last for two weeks, and we will meet back here at the end of that time, whether we found something or not. And if someone is not here after the two weeks, we will wait two days before searching for you. Any questions?"

"Yeah, just one. How the hell is this trip gonna be any different than the other ones we've been going on?" Tom asked harshly, leaning against his sword that he braced against the ground.

"I was kinda thinking the same thing... we've been searching for over a month. If we haven't found anyone by now, are they even in this world to begin with?" Jordan added, a bit calmer than Tom. Martha nodded.

"It's a valid point. And yes, there is a chance that we landed in a different world than them. But... I have a gut feeling that they are here, somewhere. And I will be honest, I don't have any evidence behind it."

She took a breath and looked around at them. "The visions I've had while we're here... I believe they will happen soon, and I have felt Dianite's presence within them. That tells me that at the very least, my uncle is here."

"So we're just going on a feeling?" Tom asked.

"Do you have a better idea?" Wag added, and he didn't have an answer to that.

Martha put a hand on her hip. "If there's nothing else, then let's get going. Take a compass and a clock." Martha handed out said items to each pair.

After taking it, she turned to Tucker and sighed. "I'll see you soon."

"Two weeks." He agreed, kissing her quickly.

Sonja felt her stomach twist, though she wasn't sure why. Was this a good idea? Would Tucker be right, and Star really would kill her on sight? Should she stay here with Tucker, safe and comfortable and just try to forget?

"Sonja? Are you coming?" Martha's voice broke her out of her thoughts, and when she looked around she realized Tucker had left.

"Y-Yeah, coming." She stuttered, rolling her shoulders. Martha gave her a look, but didn't comment.

"So, what's your plan? How are you actually gonna find Andor?" Sonja asked the mystic once they started walking. Martha sighed.

"I tried all last night to center in on his soul. If he's in this world, I should be able to find him through that little thread. But for some reason... it's so faint. He must be hundreds of thousands of blocks away, for it to be that weak. I was able to find Star's threads easily, once I tried. But Andor... leave it to that boy to be elusive from me." She smiled softly, and Sonja patted her shoulder.

"I'm sure you'll find him."

She nodded, then glanced at her. "So then, what's your plan? Do you remember how to get back to where we landed?"

Sonja faked a confident smile. "Of course! I just keep walking for like, hours, and I'll find it. That area was full of super weird mountains, I know I'll recognize it." That came out a lot more confident than she'd thought it would, and Martha was convinced.

"I'm glad. Honestly, I am worried about you... I thought that going in groups of two would be safer, but you going off alone... Please, just promise me you'll be safe."  
The brunette's smile became more genuine, and she softened. "I'll be alright. I'll make sure to dig myself a hole before the sun goes down. And you know, Star might actually be nicer if only one of us finds her. If it was both of us she might think we were there to attack or steal from her or something."

"Fair point." Wag piped up, readjusting his robe. "You're a lot less likely to punch her in the face right off the bat."  
Sonja rolled her eyes. "Hopefully. We were arguing about what we were gonna do last night. He's insisting that Star is evil and is going to kill me on sight."

"But you don't think so?" Martha asked. Sonja shook her head, leaping off a small bluff and rolling to avoid hurting herself. She stood up and brushed herself off, then began walking again.

"Star is so young. She's had to grow up in this weird world, and gods only know what her parents were like. I think something happened when she was young that made her hate Ianite."

"Like what?" The wizard tilted his head. He and Martha had discussed the possibility, but Sonja was saying it like it was fact.

"Like, I dunno... she took something away from her and Star never forgave her. She could be blaming Ianite for something that wasn't even her fault, for all we know. I mean, it's even possible that she's Ianite's daughter in this world! You never know, maybe she's your counterpart, Martha!"

The light haired mystic snickered. "Anything's possible." Then she became more solemn. "Maybe she's like my brother... After Freya and Alva passed, he disowned Ianite and looked to Mianite for guidance... seeking order after his life was thrown into chaos. It worked for a while, but... he went too far. Perhaps Star is the same way."

Sonja chewed her cheek. "I didn't really make that connection, but you're right... Well, I made it through that once, I can do it again, right?"

Martha nodded. "Indeed. And Star doesn't have an army on her side like Glede did."

Then her eyes went out of focus for a moment, and she stumbled. Wag was quick to catch her - it seemed like this wasn't an out of the blue occurrence.

"Martha, are you alright?" Sonja asked, concerned. The other nodded, a hand going to her forehead and rubbing at her eyes.

"Yes, I'm fine... I caught a very strong thread of Andor's essence. We must part ways now, Sonja. It's leading me this way. Good luck, and be safe."

She then all but sprinted away from the other two, following an invisible thread. Wag nodded to Sonja, repeating Martha's farewells before running after her. They soon disappeared over a hill and Sonja was alone.

Sighing softly, she rolled her shoulders back and steeled herself for a quiet journey With no wind or animals wandering around, the only sound that echoed in her ears was her footsteps and the steady rhythm of her own breathing.


	15. It's About the Journey

Tom was exploding with energy, and Jordan was not up for it this morning. He hadn't slept well and he felt like his eyelids would soon become so heavy that he wouldn't be able to stay awake.

"Joooooordan!"

He blinked and stumbled back. Tom was in his face, looking over him with a curious expression. "You look like shit, dude. What's wrong?"

Jordan shoved him away, shaking his head. "I'm fine. Just tired. Can I borrow some of your energy, since you seem to have more than enough," He snarked, and Tom grinned.

"I would if I could, man! I feel amazing, like I could fight a god or something!" The zombie man bounced on his toes and twirled his sword. Jordan felt drained watching him.

"Glad you are." Gods, he was so tired. They'd been walking for what, an hour? He should not be drained like this, if he'd gotten a good night's sleep. He was fed too, though fish and bread for a month hardly filled his stomach anymore.

Then again, maybe he wasn't the anomaly. Everyone else had seemed at less than full this morning, and they had for the past week or two. This world had an energy that was different than the ones they'd been to before. It was heavy, dark, like thunder clouds hanging low overhead. The air was thick, making it hard to breathe and think properly. It made everyone want to seek shelter, stay inside and lie in bed—to wait until the clouds finally broke, because none of them wanted to be caught in the rain that wasn't an _if,_ but a _when._ Hopefully once it finally did, the sun would break through and they could finally be free from whatever it was that made them feel so strange.

Only Tom seemed to be able to resist the ever present weight on their shoulders, staying lighter than air. He wasn't even aware of it, since the one time Jordan asked him about the bad feeling this world gave him, he didn't understand. He pointed to the chaotic organization of the land as why he felt uneasy, rather than the oppressive feeling in his gut. Everyone else had known exactly what he was talking about, but Tom… didn't.

"Do you really think we're going to find anything out here, Tom?"

The Dianitee tilted his head, jumping down from a small hill and falling into stride next to him. "Well, I don't really think we're gonna find anyone that we're looking for. It's been a month, I think we'd have found something by now. But you never know, we might find someone else who can help us. Like pirates or something! Or like, an old temple that's got a bunch of gear! Anyways, isn't this better than staying at home? Fresh air's good for you, since you look like death!"

That neverending optimism did make him smile slightly. While he'd love to see Ianite in this world, and speak with her, finding any clue about this world would also be good.

Hopefully Sonja would be able to get that at least. As much as he tried to hate Star as vehemently as his friends did... he couldn't. Ianite stood for balance, and that meant he had to consider both sides. And weighing everything against each other, the evidence suggested that Star was a good person, albeit angry and with a short fuse. She hated Ianite for a reason, but he'd seen that before.

What killed him was that he wasn't able to help directly. His presence would only serve to worsen the problem. It was the exact opposite of what Ianite was supposed to stand for. It made him a little sad to think about it.

"Ok, but Tom, Martha was sure you'd be able to track down Mot and Dianite somehow."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm trying, but I dunno how she expects me to do that. What, does she think I'm some kinda compass or something? It's not like I can see souls like she can, so what the hell does she expect?"

Jordan shrugged. "She said because you're a Dianite follower, you might have a connection."

"That's bullshit. If that was all it took, we'd have found all three gods by now!"

He shrugged again. "I don't know. If you concentrate, can you feel anything?"

Jordan saw a flash of something appear in Tom's eyes, but it disappeared before it registered. "I've never felt Dianite in this world, not once. Not even the other world's Dianite."

They'd been friends long enough for Jordan to know when he was blatantly lying. "Can you at least try? Who knows, maybe it'll work this time," he insisted, taking a seat on the ground himself. Tom made a face at him, but surprisingly didn't put up too much of a fight before joining him.

"Fine. Just for you, Sparkly-dick, I'll try." he winked flirtatiously and Jordan rolled his eyes, leaning back and using his arms as a pillow. Might as well try to get some rest while he could. Within minutes, he was asleep.

Tom glanced back at his friend as he fell asleep. He may be loyal to his friends, but he was also loyal to his god. And Dianite had told him that he wasn't to say a single word until he could gather enough energy...  
"Wait, what am I supposed to do?" Tom said out loud, frowning when Jordan doesn't answer, due to being asleep. The Dianitee groaned, then crossed his legs, rested his hands in his lap and closed his eyes.

"Um, so, Dianite, if you're around somewhere, can ya please show yourself? I don't wanna have to find you."

No response but a faint whistle of a breeze in his ear. "Come on, we've offered you literally hundreds of diamonds, that's more than enough."

A nerve in his right forearm twitched, and he winced. "Gods, this is pointless. You're not around. I might as well be trying to talk to a ghost!"  
Tom sprang to his feet, energized with his frustration. He paced around, punching at the air to try and calm himself down. "Come! On! Dianite! You talked to me before, what the hell did you mean?"

He looked down at his hands, taking a breath. "You said to not abuse my power... but I don't have any power!" he said it out loud, but part of him knew that wasn't completely true. He remembered the incredible surge of power within the dream. It wasn't real… but it was.

An idea. He sat down again, now a little ways from Jordan, and resumed his position. His lids fell and within the darkness of his mind, he summoned the image of the dream. The flames, suffocating. Them swirling into the visage of his god, terrifying and powerful. The words, spoken in a tongue he could only understand in a dream. The spark landing on his hand, and the incredible power blooming inside his body. The floating feeling that he was capable of anything, if he just put his mind to it.  
"I'm sick of fish and bread. If I could just have something else… an apple, or melon, or something!"

He concentrated, squeezing his eyes so tight that he saw stars and gave himself a headache. With eager anticipation his eyes flew open, and looking around, he saw…

Nothing. There was nothing laying on the ground, besides his friend a few meters away.

Tom moaned in annoyance. He tried so hard! What good was Dianite's cryptic message if he didn't actually get superpowers?

He spun around to wake Jordan. They should get going, they didn't want to get caught at night with the millions of mobs. The flat field they were in wasn't going to be the best to dig a temporary base into.

"Jordan? Jordan, wake up!" The older man groaned, batting at his friend. Tom rolled his eyes and shook his shoulder, but Jordan still didn't rise.

"Jardon, get up!" Tom reeled back to kick Jordan's foot, but before he could he heard a small "pop" come from behind him. He froze, the small sound had somehow reverberated within his entire body. When he finally managed to turn his head, he did not expect what he saw.  
A single apple, floating a few inches above the ground. Waiting. Tom blinked, sure that he'd just gone crazy. But it stayed. He closed his eyes for longer. It was still there when he opened them.

"Jordan! Holy shit!" He exclaimed, and that brought Jordan out of his nap. He squinted at Tom, irritated.

"What?"

"Look! Look what I did!" Tom pointed excitedly, and Jordan rolled his eyes before sitting up. They widened as he focused on what he was seeing.  
"W-What? Where did that come from?"

"I did it! I was just thinking really hard about wanting an apple and there it was! Hold on... I want... a million diamonds to rain from the sky!"

He threw his head up to the sky expectantly, but not surprisingly nothing came of it. Shrugging, Tom moved to scoop up the apple, taking a big bite out of it.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold up, why do you get to eat it!?" Jordan's eyes were intense, ready to pounce for something other than bread. He lunged for it, but Tom danced out of the way.  
"Cause I spawned it, so it's mine!"

"How could you have spawned it?!" Jordan exclaimed, still trying to get the bitten apple.

"I dunno, how else does it exist?!"

"I don't care, give it to me, Tom!"

Jordan was in a frenzy, and in the heat of the moment Tom's only option was putting some space between them. Unfortunately for Jordan, that meant throwing a punch right into his solar plexus. The older man fell to the ground, suddenly unable to breath. He gasped, trying to drag air back into his lungs.

Before he could get back up, Tom shoved the rest of the apple into his mouth, nearly choking. That was... intense, especially for Jordan who was usually so collected. This world was getting to him more than Tom had thought.

"You... suck..." Jordan huffed as he started to regain air. "How did you even... do that?"

Tom shrugged. "I don't know! I was just concentrating, and then I thought about how hungry I was, but that I didn't want bread or fish, and then it just appeared, right there!"

Jordan blinked. "And it wasn't, you know, a god or something that you just didn't notice?"

"And they didn't say anything? The gods are attention whores, Jordan, they always say something when they appear. If they didn't, isn't that weirder than me summoning it?"

He pursed his lips. "I guess... but, you've never been able to do that before!"

"Yeah, well, maybe you can too! That girl had a bunch of spawn eggs, remember? Maybe people in this world can summon items sometimes?" He didn't sound too sure of himself, but it was the best suggestion he could come up with. Why else would he be able to summon an apple out of thin air?

"You try it!" Tom shoved Jordan forward, causing his friend to stumble. "If I can do it, you can too!"'  
"But what did you _do_?"

Tom rolled his eyes. "I just imagined it was there, and then it was!"

Jordan shook his head, confounded. But Tom didn't let it go, so he sat down and closed his eyes, focusing on materializing something. Anything.  
He squeezed his eyes so tight that he saw stars, but when he opened them again, there was nothing sitting in front of him. Tom patted his shoulder after a minute of waiting.  
"I guess I'm just special. Alright, c'mon, let's go!"

"What?" Jordan asked incredulously, standing up and following his friend. He was re-energized by this phenomenon. "Tom, shouldn't we think about this some more? You made an apple appear out of thin air! Aren't you curious?"

Tom thought about it for a second, then shrugged. "Nah. Weird stuff happens, it's whatever."

That wasn't the right thing to say, according to Jordan's reaction. "What do you mean? Does stuff like this happen to you a lot?"

"No! I just meant, you know... look around! The land's like this, why not summoning random items sometimes?" Tom lied. But now was not the time to spill to Jordan about the weird things that have been happening to him. "Now come on, we're s'pposed to find Dianite and we're not gonna do that if you don't move!"

They continued on, and Jordan dropped it after Tom refused to answer any of his questions. But only for now. Tom was hiding something. That in itself wasn't new. But there was something about how he was acting, how serious he kept getting, that gave Jordan a bad feeling in his gut.

He would get the answers from Tom, because it felt like they were racing the clock, and whatever Tom was hiding was the key to their victory.


	16. Finding the Trail

The pulse of Andor's faint soul traces guided the duo away from Sonja, before leveling out into a path that they surmised was parallel to Sonja's. Martha nearly ran herself straight into several pits, focusing heavily on her sixth sense and ignoring the other five. Luckily, Wag was paying attention and grabs her around her waist, swinging her back into safety when she took a step into a lava pit.

She took a shaky breath, kicking her smoldering boot off before kissing Wag's cheek. "Thank you. I'm sorry, it just hit me so suddenly..."

"'s alright, I'm here for you."

She hummed happily, taking his hand and starting to walk again. "You always are."

They walked in silence for a while, Wag content to follow Martha's lead. After a bout of silence, he spoke up again.

"Martha?"

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

The mystic laughed daintily at the question. "I'm a little tired, you know I didn't get much sleep last night. But I'm well enough to keep going until dusk."

Wag shook his head, nudging her gently with his elbow. "That isn't what I meant."

"Hmm?"

He pursed his lips. "We're trying to find Andor, but... well, are you prepared for the possibility that we won't?"

"Are you doubting my abilities?" She asked him with a smile.

"No! Just... you said yourself that he's extremely far away. Has he gotten any closer?"

"Wag, my senses aren't that precise-"

"So that's a no."

Martha pouted. He didn't understand, she wasn't a homing compass, she just had a vague ability to locate a person's soul. She opened her mouth to explain that to him, but he cut her off before she could.

"All I'm saying, is that, if he is here, which you say he is and I believe you, then it's possibly he's trying to find us just as much as we're trying to find him. And, if he happens to be going the same way as us, at the same rate, then we're never going to find him."

"Maybe so, but there's just as likely of a chance that he isn't going that way, and we'll meet him in the middle. Don't be pessimistic, we have two weeks to search for him. Chin up!" Martha tapped two fingers under his chin and grinned, pulling him along by the other hand.

Wag dropped it, but the awkward silence that remained was less preferable, so eventually she sighed and glanced back at him. "Wag, I'm serious. We just need to think positive. It's a little early to be losing hope, don't you think?"

He let out a long sigh through his nose. "I know. But... I just, have this bad feeling. And I know you're the mystic, not me, but... it just, isn't sitting right with me."

"What isn't, love?"

He squeezed her hand. "The fact that... we're alone. I don't mean you and me, I mean the six of us. In Ruxomar, the gods were always around. Or, at least, there was a way to contact them if we needed. But we've tried everything, and we've gotten nothing."

Martha hummed, frowning. "Maybe so, and yes, that's been on my mind as well, but, Andor's not a god, dear. Are you suggesting we should have some kind of otherworldly connection to him?"

"No... no, I don't think that. Honestly, I don't really know what I'm saying."

She leaned her head on his shoulder. "I understand your concerns. It seems everyone's been having them, about this world and its gods. But, that's why we're focusing on those who aren't gods. Andor has a soul that can be traced. The same can't be said for any of them, unfortunately."

He raised his eyebrows. "Hold on, gods don't have souls?"

She tilted her head sideways with a small grin at him. "I thought I'd told you this, but I suppose not. No, not in the same way humans do. They have their quintessence, which functionally is very similar, but visually its very different."

"How?"

Martha gladly took the change in topic, and took her hand to motion in front of her while she explained. "Well, a human soul looks like... a star. A small little star, burning brightly within their chest. Right about where their heart is. And a trained eye may be able to see a faint glow throughout their veins, as their spirit courses through their blood. A human's soul is as paramount to their being as a working heart or pair of lungs are. Without it, a body is just a body. It cannot move on its own."

Wag's eyes were wide. "So wait, we're all just like puppets being controlled by a soul?"

"What? No, of course not. Your soul is a part of you. Just think of it as another organ. Just one not easily seen. Though," Martha snickered, "ideally, you should never see any of your organs. But that's beside the point."

"Ok, so then what does a god's soul look like?"

She paused, trying to gather the correct words. "Well, if a human's soul looks like a twinkling star, then the gods are the sun. They don't have a soul, per se... it's more like, they are the soul, free of any mortal confines. You know how you get spots in your eyes if you look at the sun? That's what it feels like. You can't look at a god's quintessence in its raw form."

"But, the gods look human, more or less. Are they just, human souls that don't have bodies?" Wag asked, looking slightly uncomfortable but very intrigued with the concept. Martha shook her head.

"No, that's not possible. Human souls don't burn after their bodies die. In some rare cases, they might break free and roam around, but they usually can't survive like that. It only happens in cases where the human dies under distress, or they have unfinished business on this plane of existence that ties them here."

Wag made a face, though he relaxed before Martha saw it. "Ok, so, humans have souls, but gods have quintessence. Wouldn't it make more sense that the brighter the soul is, the easier it is to see?"

The mystic hummed again, tilting her hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. "Not quite. See, human souls leave threads wherever they go. Like a heat trail. They do so because they're constantly generating more energy than needed, so it gets let out. Those threads can be picked up by someone like me, with the 'sight', and followed back to the source."

"However, the gods are different. Because they don't have a physical body, their form is generated by their quintessence. And even though they're much more powerful than any human can ever dream to be, the amount of excess energy generated is put forward to maintaining their form and their powers. In short, they don't generate threads like human soul do."

"Huh. Ok, I see what you mean when you say they're similar but different."

Martha smiled sympathetically. "It's alright if it doesn't make sense to you. It took me a long time to understand, and I had my mother and uncles teaching me quite a bit. All that really matters is that Andor is leaving traces that I can follow, whether he knows it or not."

"And you're sure we can find him?"

"As sure as I can be."

Wag seemed content enough with her answer, allowing the topic to drop for real this time. Martha took his hand again and they continued to follow the mystic's senses.

After a few hours of walking, Martha was getting slightly worried. The trail wasn't getting any warmer - in fact, at some points it was so faint she couldn't actually be sure if they were going the correct way. There was also something else, pulling at the edges of her vision and tugging at her gut.

"Martha? Are you alright?"

The wizard tugged at her hand, but she didn't stop walking. She was in some sort of trance, focusing entirely on the trail she was following.

"Martha, love, it's getting dark. We need to stop."

She shook her head slowly. "No... we can't stop... he's... so close..."

Wag sucked in a breath, she sounded winded and distant. He grabbed onto her hand with both of his, tugging her to a complete stop.

"Martha! Snap out of it!"

She turned back to him, and his fears were confirmed. Her eyes were dull, clouded. Yet they burned with an energy that he couldn't describe as anything else but intense.

Then they fluttered shut, and she fell into his arms like a ragdoll. Wag staggered, adjusting his arms to get a better grip on her. "Martha! Shit, not now!"

This was the absolute worst time for her to fall into one of her visions. The sun was just below the horizon now, and any second now there would be hoards of mobs staggering after them. He moved fast, twisting Martha's body so he could pick her up in a bridal carry and start running in the direction Martha had been leading them, a grove of what had once been trees. An arrow whizzed by his head, a creeper hissed and blew up as he passed. His hands grew sweaty and clammy and Martha nearly slipped out of his grasp.  
When he slowed to adjust his grip and get a better hang of her, he felt two fangs pierce the back of his ankle and he cried out in both surprise and pain as the fiery pain of poison started racing through his veins. Wag kicked the cave spider away, cursing this world and its tendency to spawn mobs where they shouldn't spawn as he began running again. He couldn't stop and fight here, out in the open where a single mob sneaking up from behind him could be the end of him or Martha. The tree grove may be more dangerous because it offers the monsters places to hide, but the same benefit applied to him as well.

A zombie swiped at him as he ducked under a tree's reaching branches and tore through his robe and into his shoulder. The pain drove him forward, weaving between tree trunks and dodging the monsters following him until he broke into wall of brush into a clearing.

By the light of the moon, Wag could see the brambles were surrounding the clearing, thick enough that the monsters wouldn't be able to break through them easily. He quickly set Martha down away from the entrance he'd made and raced back to it, building a barrier that they wouldn't be able to break through out of miscellaneous blocks he had in his pockets. He heard the clanking of moving bones and zombie groans come from the other side, but nothing broke through.

Wag took the moment to breathe, realizing now just how much pain he was in. He lit a torch to inspect the extent of his injuries. The deep scratch on his shoulder was oozing, and when he looked down and twisted his ankle to check it, it burned and yellowish liquid was seeping out of the wound. The wizard took a shaky breath as he sat down and took off his robe to use as a rag. Dabbing at the scratch on his shoulder stung, but he hissed his way through it. Then he took care to wipe away all the grossness surrounding his ankle bite. He kept at it until it bled clean, then ripped a strip and tied it tightly. He decided his shoulder wound was too large and raw to bind, plus it was shallow enough that it would benefit more from fresh air.

The wizard lit a few more torches and walked around the perimeter of the strangely circular clearing, placing them to make certain no mobs would spawn. Once he'd done that, he realized something that hadn't struck him as odd at first.  
This clearing had grass growing in it. As in, not a single five by five patch of it, but the entire circle was full of soft, plush grass. Even weirder, the barrier that was keeping the monsters out was completely made out of tangled leaves, not of random blocks like the rest of the forest was. It looked... natural, which had to mean that this was entirely intentional. But why?

Wag finished securing the perimeter, making sure there was no way for any mobs to get in. Then he turned back to the clearing, and registered that there was a small structure in the center that, in the torch light, he could recognize as a tree. An actual tree, with leaves and a trunk. It was intentionally planted here, in the center of the clearing. And looking closer, he saw there were signs on the trunk with slightly faded writing on them.

He stepped closer, holding the torch close to it so he can read them. There are four, one on each side of the tree.

' _Leo - A son, a brother and a protector until his very last breath. May his soul rest in peace.'_

' _Luna - A mother, a daughter, and a protector until the very end. May her soul rest in peace.'_

' _Sol - A man with good intentions caught up in bad circumstances. May his soul rest in peace.'_

The bad feeling he had felt before came back full force, and he even put a hand over his gut to try and stop the pain he was getting. His curiosity got the better of him though, and he walked around to the other side of the tree to read the final sign. And with that, he felt his heart drop straight out of his chest.

' _Andor - A father, a son, and a protector until his very last breath. May his soul rest in peace.'_

Wag couldn't breathe. They'd come all this way - and he was dead?!

"W-Wag?" Faintly beyond the sudden rush of his blood in his ears, the wizard caught the sound of his girlfriend calling out for him, panicked and afraid. He stepped out from behind the tree and jogged over to her, his legs giving out once he reached her.

She was crying, her breath coming in ragged gasps and there were tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. "I saw... I dreamt... he was dead... he was stabbed, Wag... please, tell me... tell me it's not real!"

He said nothing, bowing his head as the truth crashed over him like a wave. Martha had seen it - there was no denying it.

"Wag, please! It wasn't real! It couldn't be! Please, tell me it was just a dream!" The mystic clawed at his robes, pulling herself closer and shaking him. Frantic, her voice cracked as he managed to raise his head, and she saw the defeat in his eyes. "No... no! No, no, no! It can't be!"

"I'm... so sorry, Martha..." He bit his lip and pulled her into a tight hug. She resisted at first, trying desperately to pull away from his arms, fighting as if it would change the truth.

"He's not! It was a dream! Another world! It wasn't my Andor! It can't be!"

"I can't be alone!"

He only held her tighter as she broke down in tears. Martha buried her face in the crook of his neck, sobbing so hard she started dry heaving. He didn't bother telling her she wasn't alone - that wasn't what she needed right now. She'd lost her brother and his wife, her niece, her father and her mother all in a relatively short time. And now, she was learning that the last human remaining in her family tree was dead.

They stayed like that for a long time. At some point they both fell asleep in each other's arms, exhausted from the trek and the stress. When Wag woke up, he blinked against the early morning sun and blearily looked around. His environment was foggy with beams of dawn sunlight streaking down into the clearing.

He blinked and shifted, moving his arm that had ended up under Martha's body to get the blood moving again. Wag looked down and kissed her forehead, then glanced up as movement attracted his attention.

At first, nothing was there. But as Wag blinked away the water in his eyes, he started noticing how the foggy sun streaks were shimmering in a strange pattern behind Martha. Like something was there but he couldn't focus enough on it to see what it was.

"...Andor?" The wizard mumbled, and he could feel the figure smile. It was a warm presence, and it stepped forward and brushed its invisible hand against the sleeping woman's shoulder.

Then Wag opened his eyes, and nothing was there. The fog was gone, and the sunlight was no longer serene, but harsh and burning into his eyes.

He felt Martha sigh happily against him, and Wag settled back down again to sleep some more. Whatever that was - ghost, dream or mirage - it was calm and kind, and it was safe to stay here just a little longer.


End file.
